


Revived (Cryaotic x Reader)

by PixelErr0r



Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game), cryaotic, youtube - Fandom
Genre: Eventual Romance, F/M, Fanfiction, Inspired by The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game), Reader-Insert, Romance, Some angst, TWD Video Game, The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game) - Freeform, Thriller, YouTube, YouTubers - Freeform, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies, originally posted on Quotev, twd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:00:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 76,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22888831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PixelErr0r/pseuds/PixelErr0r
Summary: Waking up in an unknown place is scary enough; throw in zombies and it's terrifying. Being in the video game "The Walking Dead" may not be so bad with some of your favourite YouTubers in it though. The question is... Will you be able to survive long enough to escape? (Cry x Reader)[Remastered version of the original that was posted on Quotev in 2014]
Relationships: ChaoticMonki | Cryaotic/You, Cryaotic/Reader
Comments: 22
Kudos: 52





	1. [One]

The very first thing you experienced upon regaining consciousness was a throbbing pain located behind your eyes, and your face involuntarily scrunched up in response to the unpleasant sensation. Ugh, when had your couch ever been this uncomfortable? Was this rude awakening a direct cause of a terrible hangover? You didn’t remember drinking excessively the night before, but if you were in this much pain, maybe you had consumed enough alcohol to have erased it from your own memory. Groaning softly, you finished up wallowing in your own misery and resigned yourself to dealing with the pain and proceeding with getting up. You mustered your willpower and creaked open your eyes.

Huh, that was odd. Either you didn’t make it back home last night, or your dwelling place was mysteriously lacking its usual ceiling. In fact, it was missing any ceiling at all. Upon opening your eyes you found yourself staring up at a pale blue sky. Had you been that wasted that you didn’t even make it home? You desperately shifted through your memories for any scrap of information that could tell you what the hell was going on but came up blank. Everything was strangely hazy in your mind.

That was it, no more alcohol for you ever again. Goodness, you were such a mess.

You pushed yourself up into a sitting position and observed your surroundings, finding yet another peculiar piece of your current circumstance. You had apparently passed out in the middle of the street. Had no cars come by and seen you there? You’d have thought _someone_ would have come across you and done something about it. Patting yourself down, you huffed in frustration as you realized you didn’t have your wallet or phone on you. Okay, so maybe someone did come across your unconscious form and decided it was the perfect opportunity to pickpocket you. Damn it.

With an undignified whine and an embarrassing amount of effort, you managed to make it to your feet and squinted at the setting you found yourself in. The neighbourhood wasn’t familiar to you, and seemed like a pretty nice if not generic residential area. Curiously, there was not a single person or running vehicle in sight. There were still cars in driveways though, so there were likely people living in many of the houses lining the street. With your current predicament, you decided that your best course of action would be to find someone that would be able to help you get in contact with the law enforcement and figure this whole thing out.

You shuffled your way over to the nearest house with a vehicle in the driveway, your body stiff and sore in ways you didn’t know were possible. Maybe someone _had_ run you over while you were conked out; it would explain why you felt like a steamroller had gone over you multiple times. You knocked on the door to the house. No response. You knocked again, a little bit more firmly. Still nothing. You frowned. Maybe they weren’t home… You moved on to the next house and received the same results. This continued for two more houses before you paused and reevaluated the situation.

No one was in sight, and the street was disconcertingly still. There was absolutely no movement of any kind, it was almost unnatural. A chill ran up your spine and goosebumps formed on your arms despite the mild weather. It was reminding you of a horror movie or video game. Where was everybody?

With nothing and no one around to provide any answers to your questions, you continued to go from door to door, growing more and more unsettled as each attempt panned out the exact same as the one before it. Something wasn’t right. What on earth was going on? You started glancing over your shoulder as you went on, unable to shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong and you were missing something vital.

Finally there was a discrepancy in the routine, but not necessarily a reassuring one. As you knocked on the front door of the umpteenth house, you were surprised to find that it swung open when your knuckles came into contact with it. The slow creak that accompanied its opening did nothing to settle the nerves wound up tightly inside your chest. Honestly it was more creepy than the unresponsive houses prior to it, and not inviting in the slightest. Still, it was the only house so far that was possibly occupied with the owner just forgetting to close the door fully when they came back from grocery shopping or something.

That’s what you told yourself at least to try to convince yourself that it didn’t make you want to run as far away as you could from it and not look back. _You’re overreacting_ , you scolded yourself internally, _it’s not that spooky_. 

Rather than just barge in, you lowly called out, “Hello?” You didn’t want to raise your voice too much (hello horror movie mistakes), but couldn’t exactly not explore the potential of a person to help you.

As expected, there was no response. You almost could have sighed in relief as you turned away to trudge your way over to the next residence. That is, until a crash sounded from inside the house, followed by a thud like someone had tripped and fallen. A poor, forgetful old lady who was hard of hearing flashed in your mind, not realizing her door hadn’t latched shut and not hearing the stranger on her doorstep call out. You pictured her cane catching on the corner of a rug and causing her to take a nasty tumble.

You swore under your breath, turning around to take a hesitant step across the threshold. “I’m coming inside, okay? I just want to make sure you’re okay,” you called out, unsure if your voice would be heard but wanting to announce yourself anyway just in case.

A moan sounded from within, shocking you and cementing your idea that someone might be hurt inside. You steeled your resolve, willing your stomach to go back to its proper place rather than where it had taken up residence in your throat due to the anxiety tingling through you.

The house was dark and silent, no lights on and missing the background hum of electric appliances running, which only served to unnerve you further. Peeking into the kitchen reveals no one, and you moved on through the hallway until you came to the living room area of the house, where you paused to take in the disaster contained in the space. Furniture was knocked over around the room, a chair knocked over near the arch leading to the hallway appeared to be the culprit that had caused the crash that had drawn you into the house. Far more concerning, however, were what seemed to be _blood stains_ splattered across the walls and floors and dishevelled furniture pieces. _What the hell had happened here?_

You gulped uncertainly, mouth suddenly too dry. There was no sign of any person still, and there was way too much blood in this room for it to be anything less sinister staining everything. Whatever had happened here was not good, and you didn’t feel particularly inclined to find out exactly what that was. You had your own issues on hand at the moment, thank you very much. You told yourself that it must have been a raccoon or some other scavenging creature that had caused the crash earlier and made the decision to _get out get out get out get ou-_

A growl sounded from behind you as you took the first couple of steps back towards the hall to the front door and your heart dropped as you pictured a huge, rabid raccoon charging at you. You surged forward to book it out of the house before the creature could get you, but something grabbed onto your leg and you came crashing down to the floor, chin bumping painfully against the hardwood floor. The offending appendage that had latched on to you was cold and clammy, which was both gross and terrifying in that you came to the realization that your attacker didn’t seem to be as much of an animal as it did humanoid. You twisted around to see what or who had grabbed onto you and found a sickly looking deranged man hanging off of you, struggling to pull his mouth to your ankle and… _bite_ you? 

Driven by panic, you kicked out at him, heel connecting with his face but not succeeding in freeing yourself from his grasp. So, naturally, you kicked him again. And again. And again. You kicked him until you were able to rip your foot away from him and scrambled backwards to put some space between yourself and the lunatic. Seeing him recovering already (dude took hits like a champ apparently), you hurried to your feet as he clumsily copied the movement. Well, at the very least your kicks seemed to have stunned him a little bit judging by how unsteady he was on his feet.

You frantically looked around for anything you could use to defend yourself, but the options were severely limited and you found yourself resorting to grabbing a table lamp and throwing it in the attacking man’s general direction. It served to buy you a couple extra seconds of distraction for you to zip around the man and make an attempt for the front door. But of course, you barely got four hasty steps towards your goal before a scream was ripped from your throat as you found the floor rushing up to meet you again.

The chair.

The chair that had been right by the archway to the living room had been in your path, but you had been too absorbed with your escape that you hadn’t been watching your footing. As a result you wound up on the ground again, the chair now properly broken and the aggressive man practically upon you. You had very little time to react, and any hopes of escaping before the guy caught you had been dashed. As the haggard body pitched forward to land on top of you, your body moved on its own accord and the next thing you knew the man’s weight was slumped on top of you with the broken leg of the chair shoved through his soft and penetrable eye socket.

Dark sludge oozed from the entry wound and seeped onto your chest, the pungent smell overpowering and attacking your senses as it coated the front of your shirt. Your stomach clenched and you shoved the man off of you before turning to the side and promptly throwing up. Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes and your throat burned by the time you finished emptying your stomach onto the wooden floor, and when you saw (and smelt) your vomit mixing with the pool of blood emanating from the dead body you had to fight back more dry heaving. Shaking, you unsteadily got to your feet, staring at the motionless body left on the ground with wide eyes.

_Oh God._

What had you done?! Sure, yeah, the guy had come at you with aggressive intent, but you were just trying to defend yourself, you didn’t mean to _kill him_! You numbly looked down at the blood coating the front of your clothing and even staining your skin. The queasiness was rising again in your gut, but you forced it down with a heavy gulp and shook your head to remind yourself to stay focused. You needed to remain cool and collected, panic wasn’t going to help the situation at all.

 _Easier said than done_ , a voice in your head snarked. You chose to ignore it.

With several deep breaths to steady yourself, you crouched down to examine the limp body you had shoved off of yourself only minutes prior. The broken chair leg sticking out of his eye socket was gruesome and you couldn’t bring yourself to look at his face for any extended period of time without feeling the remnants of bile rising up your esophagus. Instead you brought your attention to the rest of his being, and were surprised by the other injuries he was sporting and even the colour of his skin seemed off. He almost appeared to be starting to rot, even though he had been alive mere moments ago. It didn’t make any sense for any decomposition to have been taking place yet. Then you saw the bite.

On one of his forearms there was a hefty chunk of flesh missing, and by the looks of it, there were teeth involved in the disappearance of said flesh. The shape was fairly round, and almost seemed more humanoid than creature inflicted, which was concerning to say the least. You weren’t too far off with the earlier vibes when you had deemed the atmosphere being reminiscent of a horror movie, except now it was definitely more distinctly feeling like a zombie horror movie. 

The internal specification could almost make you chuckle, except the situation was much too solemn for that and you found yourself going over the details from when you had woken up on the streets to where you were now. The lack of clear memories, the abandoned streets, the empty houses, the senseless attack of the man, the fact that he had only growled and his injuries preluding your fatal addition and the rotted tinge to his flesh. The strangely human mouth shaped bite. Maybe it wasn’t so crazy to humour the idea of zombies somehow existing and apparently happening.

Whatever was going on, you just wanted to leave this house and put some distance between it and yourself. The smell alone was enough to make you feel ill.

Your zombie theory proved extremely probable as you reached the front door only to witness dozens of corpses shambling towards the house you were in. One of the approaching figures had a pair of scissors jammed in between their breasts, which you felt like would hinder a _living_ person, but did not seem to bother the dishevelled woman in the slightest. 

Alright. Zombies.

Fuck.

Your scuffle with the first zombie and your scream must have caused enough of a ruckus to attract more unwanted attention. The front door was dashed as an escape route, and you doubted anything on the ground floor was going to be preferable when you heard a banging begin to sound from presumably the back entrance to the house. Upstairs it was then. Taking the stairs two at a time (like a total alpha) (and, you know, you were also in a rush, zombies on your trail and all), you made it to the second floor of the house just as you heard the back door swing open forcefully and loud moans and gurgles signifying multiple undead intruders.

On a crunch for time, you dashed from room to room, searching desperately for any viable means of escape. The prospects weren’t looking the best when you finally found a room that had a window off to the side of the back of the house, and was relatively close to a smaller tree outside. It wasn’t the most promising option, but you could hear the stairs creaking as zombies made their way after you, following the sound of your footfalls on the floorboards.

With no time to hesitate, you fumbled to open the window and hurried to clamber out of it and crouch on the ledge, working up the courage to make the leap to the tree outside. Logically you knew it wasn’t ideal, but you didn’t have the luxury of anything less dangerous or more probable to succeed. Inhaling one more stabilizing breath, you didn’t bother checking the progress of the zombies closing in on you before propelling yourself forward with as much strength as you possessed, aiming to catch a branch on the tree that was your only hope for escape.


	2. [Two]

Immediately you knew that you didn’t have enough momentum to adequately breach the distance from the house to the tree, even from your elevated position. It was a foolish attempt at best, but your hand had been forced and you would rather face off against gravity than a small horde of zombies. Granted, for all you knew, all you had managed to do was injure yourself in a different way before zombies reached you and devoured you alive. 

Positive thoughts.

The falling sensation caused your breath to catch in your throat, manifesting in a way that left you unable to release a scream. Time slowed, your body feeling suspended in the air as your fingers brushed through leaves, but nowhere near anything substantial enough to stop or even offer slight resistance to the force pulling your body downwards. You were left grasping useless leaves torn from their source prematurely as time all at once sped back up and sent you hurtling towards the grass, leaving no time to prepare yourself before your body crumpled into the ground with a sickening crunch.

You winced and released a yelp at the sharp pain in your left ankle that made itself known as you hurried to your feet, but pushed through it, allowing the adrenaline flowing through your veins to numb most of the pain while you remained focused on getting to safety. A decent amount of zombies had been drawn into the house you had just occupied, sure, but there was no telling how long they would remain distracted in there, and you couldn’t be sure others weren’t still left wandering outside.

The stinging of your ankle had faded into a tingle instead of anything too debilitating, but it was clear that climbing the tree as a means of getting out of reach of the undead was not an attainable solution. Hell, even if you weren’t hurt you probably wouldn’t have been able to climb something as ambitious as a tree. Regardless of your physical capabilities, hiding out in a tree didn’t seem like a very tactical route to take; you were still exposed to the elements and movement would be limited if not perilous. No, there had to be a different way to escape the situation.

Gritting your teeth to fight back any sounds that may try to escape you due to pain, you hobbled as quickly as you could towards the house beside the one you had just vacated. After cautiously checking around the corner to make sure behind the house was clear, you limped along further, eager to move as far away as you reasonably could from the zombie-infested residence. 

Your nerves were screaming at you, both in a psychological sense and a physical one. Everything in your entire being wanted to get the hell out of dodge, as soon as possible preferably. The only problem was _you still didn’t have a clue what the fuck was going on_ ; how were you supposed to get yourself out of this situation? Already at your stress limit for the evening, you decided to shelve that question until a later time, after you had found somewhere relatively safe to hide out.

You weren’t sure if it was because you were aware of the existence of zombies or because it was approaching nighttime, but the presence of the cannibalistic corpses was growing more and more apparent as time wore on. The main thing that kept you pushing yourself to go farther even though your ankle was really starting to burn was the constant fear spurned by the background din of threatening groans serving as ambience to your current personal hell. Whatever the reason was, it didn’t matter, because everything about your situation was bad.

Wandering around an unfamiliar area infested with actual zombies, all while injured and having night quickly settling in. An involuntary whimper escaped you as hopelessness started to creep in. You just wanted to go home. Or wake up to find out you were having the worst nightmare ever. Something, _anything_ to be out of here.

Tears welled up in your eyes and you knew that it was all becoming too overwhelming, so you made the executive decision that this was as far as you could go for the day. Best to search for a safe place before it got too dark anyway.

It was on the third house you were actively examining as you crept by that you finally saw a potential way in. You had taken to testing doors and windows as you passed, but you had found them all locked and didn’t want to risk making noise by breaking in. The third house, however, sent a surge of much needed hope through your chest as you looked up towards the side of the house. While the first floor back door and windows had been secured just like the other houses, there was a window on the side of the house from the alleyway that had been left ajar. Just barely, but that was enough. You internally thanked whichever person had been rushed or forgetful and provided you with this stroke of luck that you so desperately needed.

Wedging your fingers into the sliver of space available, you shimmied the window up, scowling at its resistance but ultimately prevailing and reigning victorious. On such a shitty day, you would gladly take this victory. You clambered into the house somewhat awkwardly, hissing under your breath when you jostled your ankle in an uncomfortable manner. 

Eager to secure your surroundings, you closed and locked the window behind you and surveyed the room you had crawled into. There were no other occupants in the room, living or dead or undead, but there were a few disconcerting blood splatters that made you shift uneasily. The sooner you could confirm that this house was safe enough to lodge in for the night the better; consistently being on edge for so long was draining and you could feel an adrenaline crash bubbling up beneath the surface.

With this resolve, you set forth to patrol the first floor, making your first priority to find some sort of weapon so that you could be better equipped to handle possible threats. Warily eyeing every doorway before entering a new room, you managed to locate the kitchen on the second try, having first stumbled upon a living room area. So far you were alone at least, but you felt much better once you found a knife in a utensil drawer and procured a means to defend yourself.

As you went along through the rest of the rooms, you double-checked every window and door leading outside that you found to make sure they were locked, and made sure to draw curtains closed as an extra precaution. You even went as far as to move some furniture to blockade the doors, which ended up causing your ankle to flare up angrily, but it gave you peace of mind so you didn’t regret your choice in the slightest. It was a slow, meticulous process, and by the end of it you were heavily favouring your uninjured right leg, but you were finally able to breathe a sigh of relief at having a secure area for the time being.

You repeated the process for the second floor, sans the barricading with furniture thankfully, seeing as entrances to outside from the second floor were a bit less accessible and therefore posed less threats to being breached. The second floor was mainly bedrooms, and you experienced an unexpected pang of remorse when you checked over a room that had obviously been tailored to suit a young child. The blood stains on the carpet did not instill much confidence in a positive fate for the missing child, and it was a depressingly sobering moment. You made a mental note to avoid that room after you closed the door behind yourself and left to finally check over the last room in the house. 

It appeared to be a spare bedroom, judging by the minimum decoration and bland design, lacking the personality and lived-in quality the child and master bedrooms had demonstrated. You decided it felt the least intrusive to stake that room as yours for the night. Exhaustion finally catching up with you, you flopped your body onto the mattress and placed your knife on the bedside table, then allowed your muscles to relax, tension leaving you for the first time in hours.

Your eyes drifted shut and you could feel sleep tugging at you practically immediately upon settling into the bed. Feeling as protected from danger as you could in the moment, you let yourself give in to your tiredness, ready to be done with the harrowing day.

You nearly jumped out of your skin when a loud crash suddenly sounded from above you.

 _The attic_ , you realized. _There must be an attic, and I forgot to check it. Stupid!_ You mentally berated your carelessness, forcing yourself out of the comfortable bed and grabbing your knife once again. There was no way you could just ignore that sound, regardless of how tired you were. Leaving it unattended could prove to be a fatal mistake, you were sure. Besides, you doubted you’d be able to sleep if you weren’t certain you were alone in the house.

Eyes trained above you, you spotted the small square hatch in the ceiling of the hallway connecting all of the rooms on the second floor and approached the previously unnoticed entrance to the house’s attic. There was a thin string dangling down, and you did a little jump to grab it, pulling the door open with your downwards momentum.

You had to leap back a step to avoid getting hit by the ladder that sprung down at the breach of the hatch, putting more weight on your hurt left ankle than you would have liked to. A couple of choice curse words escaped you under your breath and you shifted your weight back mainly to your right side. Staring up at the dark hole, you took a few deep breaths in the hopes of calming your pounding heart, but it didn’t make a huge difference sadly. Listening carefully, you couldn’t hear any further disturbances, but you didn’t allow that to lull you into a false sense of security.

While you took the time to attempt to psych yourself up enough to venture into the unknown, another thump sounded from the darkness above you and you flinched slightly. With a last couple of shaky breaths, you grabbed on to the first few rungs of the ladder and began your ascent, knife in hand and prepared to be of use to you.

Unsurprisingly, the room was almost pitch black when you made it up there. The only light permeating the darkness was that which spilled in from the entrance hatch, due to there being no power and no windows. What light made it up from the opening in the floor wasn’t much based on the dwindling light from outside as the sun disappeared for the day. 

Your entire form was tense as you remained motionless, giving your eyes time to adjust to the lack of light. There was no need to go into this literally completely blind. Once you could make out the vague shapes that were piles of boxes and whatnot that were presumably crammed up in the attic for storage purposes, you took a few tentative steps further into the area, eyes darting back and forth as you searched for any movement. The room was stuffy and made you feel a bit claustrophobic, which didn’t help with you already feeling on edge, but you pushed on, determined to get this last bit of the house done so that you could feel safe enough to sleep.

A groan came from deeper in the attic and you honed your attention to where it originated from, heading towards a large heap of assorted junk all piled up. An indiscernible object tumbled from higher up in the pile as you stepped closer and landed with a crash followed by another low inarticulate sound from whatever was responsible for you being up in the dusty top floor in the first place.

You actually released a sigh of relief when it became apparent that the creature responsible for the noises was trapped beneath the haphazard stack of stored furniture and oddities, meaning that you would have the upper hand if it turned out to be a less than desirable stowaway occupying the house with you. With that knowledge and the small comfort of your weapon being more reliable than the broken leg of a wooden chair, you were less hesitant in closing the remaining distance between yourself and the unknown inhabitant.

Your approach triggered a series of gurgles and what might have passed for wheezing coughs, which made your stomach clench slightly at the increased probability that you were going to have to kill another zombie so soon. Even if they weren’t technically alive, it was still extremely unsettling. You weren’t desensitized to the brutality of it yet like the characters in zombie shows and games eventually displayed. But, though it made you nauseous, you were also aware how pointless and downright dangerous letting pity or hesitation hinder your actions could be, so you steeled yourself to get it over with as quickly as possible, gripping your knife more tightly in your hand.

Focusing your attention on the zombie below you, you couldn’t help but note the strangeness of its attire as you contemplated the most efficient place to plunge your knife into its skull. Why on earth was it wearing a mask? And, more puzzling, _why did it seem so familiar?_

A painful cough rattled the figure again, this time forming what could almost pass as coherent words. “Hel-help…” You froze, mind spinning as you worked to piece it all together; zombies couldn’t talk, didn’t feel pain, and _the mask_ … “Pl-please… h-help m-” the deep voice tried before more hacking coughs interrupted his pleas.

The voice was hoarse, but that along with the signature poker-face mask finally allowed your brain to click with the surreal realization of who you were staring down at with your mouth agape. “Holy shit, Cry?!”


	3. [Three]

The masked man, straining under the weight stacked on top of him, was feebly pushing the objects closest to him in order to alleviate some of the pressure from his chest, which was presumably obstructing his breathing and most definitely not a very comfortable position to be in. The results he achieved was only further pain however, as his movement mainly succeeded in disturbing the precarious mountain of junk and causing an old mirror to slip from above him and land with a shatter right over one of his arms. He didn’t even have enough in him to shout at this new injury, a weak groan being the only sound that escaped his throat.

The loud smash spurred you into action and you scrambled to his side, painfully jarring your ankle as you knelt next to his supine form. “Hey, it’s okay, you’re going to be okay, I’ll get you out of here,” you assured him, your murmurs mostly trying to convince yourself that everything would turn out fine. You took a moment to examine the mess on top of him before diligently setting to work shifting objects off of him.

You moved carefully, not wanting to disturb the pile any more and cause further mishap, and focused first on lifting enough weight from the man’s chest so that his breathing wouldn’t come out in such awful strained rattling sounds. When his breath finally was steadier, you moved on to the next priority - his arm.

There was a small pool of blood formed around the appendage, but the actual injury itself was still obscured by the mirror that had fallen and caused the injury. You wasted no time in removing the offending object, but did so carefully, unsure of how it was positioned or if movement would further harm Cry’s arm. With the mirror out of the way, you were able to assess the damage it had caused and winced at the shard of glass wedged into his forearm. It did not look pretty, and the continual seeping of blood from the wound didn’t instill much confidence either.

Deciding that removing Cry himself from his location was more manageable and helpful for the time being, you turned your attention back to strategically moving the boxes, bins, and pieces of furniture from his person while avoiding any more avalanches. The task took you the better part of half an hour, and there were a few dodgy moments where you swore the only thing keeping a heavy box from tumbling down was the fervent prayers you threw desperately heavenward. But alas, finally there was enough wiggle room that you thought you’d be able to drag Cry out from underneath the pile.

Wiping the sweat that had accumulated on your brow and drying your damp palms on your pants, you stood and positioned yourself at Cry’s head to drag him out by grabbing him underneath his armpits. The man in question had lost consciousness about a third of the way through your precarious version of Jenga, but was still breathing so that was a good sign. Maybe it was better for him to have some reprieve from the entire ordeal.

His unconsciousness did, however, turn out to be a pain in that dragging the man’s dead weight was much more difficult than you had originally anticipated. Your swollen ankle was not impressed in the slightest at the strain you were forcing on it, but you had no choice; you wouldn’t be strong enough to move Cry’s body if you solely depended on your right leg. You also drag him farther away from the tower he had been trapped under than strictly necessary, but you didn’t trust the occasional wobble you swore you could see and thought it was better to be safe than sorry anyway.

Once you were satisfied that Cry and yourself were safe from the junk mountain of doom, you slumped onto the ground next to the motionless man and took the opportunity to more closely examine him.

The mask that was the biggest sign of his identity didn’t fully cover his face, which you supposed made sense, as that would likely be impractical. It was circular and covered the top half of his facial features, leaving his chin and mouth exposed. There were fair sized holes cut out for his eyes, seeing as vision was a decently important sense to have available for many people. A small chortle escaped you when you noticed the single cartoonish black hair that curled outwards from the top of the mask, not dissimilar from fanart that was often drawn of the man. Classic.

His hair was messy, though that could be entirely circumstantial, and it was coloured almost copper, but not quite to the point that you'd classify it as ginger; the light smattering of stubble across his jaw differed slightly in colour, appearing a bit darker with a possible hint of red mixed in.

Then your eyes fell onto his bloodied forearm, and you looked back up to his serene facial expression before making up your mind to remove the shard of glass while he was still passed out. It was a good opportunity to not have the action impeded, and hopefully it would be less painful in the end for the injured party.

You were by no means a doctor, and didn’t have any concrete idea of what you were doing, but you resigned yourself to just get it done and deal with it on the fly. So you firmly grabbed the sharp pane of glass and yanked at it in one smooth motion, removing it with a gross quiet squelch from Cry’s flesh. Your hands stung and you saw your own blood flow to the surface and escape the confines of the skin on your palms from the fresh slices there, courtesy of the glass shard you had dropped upon removal. The pain was annoying, but easily manageable, and you turned back to Cry instead, seeing a more alarming amount of blood spilling out from his wound.

Unsure of what to do, you applied pressure to the deeper cut with your forearm, hesitant to stick your own open wounds against his, and tried to think of something you could do to staunch the flow. There was no clothing in sight nearby, and with the amount of dust coating most of the surfaces in the room, you didn’t really think any fabric found up there would be the best for the situation anyway. You looked down at your own clothing and wrinkled your nose at the red-brown stain covering both your skin and a large portion of your shirt from the blood that had coated your front when you killed that last zombie.

 _Fuck it,_ you thought to yourself and you ripped your shirt off quickly, _the back should still be clean enough_. Thankfully the back of your shirt was much less contaminated, and you balled it up, careful to make sure the stained parts would be nowhere near Cry’s cut. Cross contamination of zombie blood into an open wound didn’t seem like the best idea. You had sometimes wondered about the possibility of infection from such an encounter, but shows didn’t always directly address that issue. Once again, you reasoned that it was better to be safe than sorry.

You pressed the balled up shirt against his arm and applied pressure, hoping that you were doing some form of good. While holding the fabric down with one hand, you allowed your other to grab the bottom hem of Cry’s shirt and lift it, checking the state of his chest to catalogue any more injuries that he may have obtained from the pile he had been trapped under.

Bruises were already forming across the expanse of his chest, and a few shallow scrapes scattered in as well, but you took solace in that there were no unnatural protrusions to suggest that any ribs were broken. The surface area that the damage spanned across was still impressive, and you had to wonder how long the man had been trapped under that damned heap before you had gotten to the house. Just hours, or had he been there for a full day or longer? You shuddered to think of how terrifying that would have been and the overwhelming sense of helplessness you assumed would come with being stuck in that state.

The sudden and unexpected harsh readjustment of his shirt to cover his abdomen shocked you, and you jerked backwards and fell onto your rear end, glancing back up to Cry’s face to meet a pair of angry blue eyes. If his narrowed eyes weren’t enough of a clue into his confusion and anger, the hard line of his mouth and the distrustful and guarded body language he was exhibiting were dead giveaways. To be fair, you had just been trying to undress him while he had been unconscious from his limited perspective of your actions.

Speaking of undress… 

Cry’s eyes darted downwards and his brows pulled even further inwards, question evident. You followed his eye movement and immediately felt your face start to burn in embarrassment. You had forgotten that you had taken off your shirt to use as an impromptu bandage for Cry’s arm. Flushed red in the face and feeling the colour continue to spread, you quickly covered your chest with your arms to the best of your ability.

“I’m just gonna… shirt… I’ll be downstairs, sorry,” you rushed out, hurriedly standing and grimacing at the accidental weight you put on your ankle. Eager to disappear from sight, you limped away from Cry without a second glance back, escaping to the spare bedroom as quickly as your ankle would permit.

Upon searching the closet in the room, you found that there weren’t any clothes stored in there, so you peeked out of the doorframe to ensure your solitude before moving to check the master bedroom for any clothes you could use to cover up.

It appeared to have been a fairly young couple that had previously inhabited the house, which was fortunate for you in that the woman seemed to have also been a similar enough size to you that her clothes would fit you comfortably. Automatically dismissing the fancy and nicer clothes, you went for practicality with the notion of the likelihood of many hardships that you would have to face if you were to remain in the living nightmare. A t-shirt and sweater were quickly chosen, but you found yourself searching the masculine clothes for pants, feeling triumphant when you found a pair of cargo pants and belt to suit your needs. As comfortable as leggings may have been, the lack of pockets might have proved to be detrimental, and your current pants were a little worse for wear, so there would be no harm in acquiring a fresh pair. You only hesitated briefly before also rummaging through the previous occupants’ underwear drawers, bypassing all of the sexy or lacy undergarments and instead pulling out a sports bra and comfy looking cotton panties to replace your own.

You changed quickly, then headed out of the room. There was movement from above you, so you assumed that Cry was slowly getting his bearings and preparing to descend into the more lived in parts of the house. You contemplated hiding away in your room and pretending the entire awkward exchange had never occurred, but the logical part of your brain knew that that wouldn’t be useful at all, so you sighed before limping down to the first floor to come up with some sort of game plan.

Partway down the stairs, your stomach let out an indignant rumble, so you allowed that to guide your path to the kitchen. A meal wouldn’t be a bad start to a plan, and could offer a buffer between you and Cry from having started off on the wrong foot.

Perusing the pantry, you grabbed two water bottles, a couple of sleeves of crackers, a jar of peanut butter, some granola bars, and a few unopened cups of pudding and applesauce. Next you procured the necessary utensils and searched out a couple of plates to balance your foods on as you carried your supplies to the living room. Although most of the heavier pieces furniture had been repurposed to serve as blockades in front of the doors on the first floor, there were still a couple of chairs from the living room you dragged around and a coffee table positioned between the two chairs as a place to set the food down.

For the second time that day, you felt the adrenaline seep out of your body and were left feeling absolutely exhausted. You sat yourself down in one of the chairs and rubbed at your eyes, a soft hiss emerging from your lips as you disturbed the cuts across your palms.

With not much else to do but wait - it would be rude to start eating without Cry, right? - you remained with your eyes closed and listened. The background murmur of the reanimated corpses wandering aimlessly outdoors wasn’t the most reassuring sound, but you took some consolation in the fact that they weren’t pounding on the door, which meant they were unaware of your presence in the abandoned residence. Apart from those somewhat quiet sounds from outside (easily missed if you weren’t concentrating on it), it only took a few minutes before you could hear slow footsteps making their way down the stairs.

The soft steps hinted at Cry’s hesitance to join the company of a complete stranger who, to his knowledge, had first been prepared to stab him and then had borderline sexually harassed him. You would think you were crazy too if you had been in his position. You buried your face in your hands, once again receiving a painful reminder of the fresh injuries on your hands.

As soon as you were in his line of sight, his eyes locked on to you and he intentionally refused to turn his body away from you. Proverbial hackles were raised. You didn’t blame him in the slightest. 

After standing a short distance away from the chair and staring you down in awkward silence, you cleared your throat and started with an apology. “I’m really sorry about earlier. I swear I wasn’t trying anything, I was just trying to see if you had any other injuries on your chest. Sorry.”

“Who are you?” he demanded, ignoring your apology. His voice was hard, but not outright hostile.

“(Y/n),” you supplied, hoping that your easy compliance would show him that you weren’t a danger to him.

“You called me Cry.” It was a statement, not a question. You nodded in affirmation. “So you know me? From YouTube and Twitch?” You nodded a second time, not having much in the way of contributing more to his line of questioning. His demeanour had melted to be less defensive and he even went as far as to sit in the chair available to him. He turned towards you and leaned forward in his seat to address you again. “Alright, so quick question: what the fuck is going on?”

His abrupt phrasing threw you off and you blinked owlishly at him. “How do you mean?” you asked, needing clarification on what exactly he was wanting you to clear up for him.

He let out a derisive snort, still obviously not fully trusting you, then made a wide general gesture with his uninjured arm as he repeated, “What’s going on? Where am I? Why am I here? Why are you here, why do you have blood on you, and why did you have a knife?” At the mention of the weapon, he placed it on the table between you almost in a challenge, but he was careful to have the handle closest to him and the blade facing you. You hadn’t even noticed that you had dropped your knife and failed to pick it up again after helping Cry, and hadn’t taken note that he had been holding it when he came into the room with you. At least the blade wasn't coated in blood, because you knew that would make everything look even worse.

You gulped at his underlying tone of accusation, and opened your mouth to respond when you had an realization form in your head. He apparently didn’t know where he was or how he had gotten here, which echoed your initial - and lingering - questions when you had woken up in the middle of the empty street. If his situation was anything like yours, was it possible that he wasn’t even aware that it was so much worse than just being in an unfamiliar setting? Did he know that there were dead people walking around and trying to eat the living?

You could see that your silence wasn’t endearing yourself to Cry at all, so you rushed to breathe out, “You haven’t seen them yet?”

“What?” Cry’s incredulation was apparent. “Haven’t seen who? What are you talking about?”

“The dead, they’re-” Cry stiffened and stood up to back away from you at the word dead, not understanding the sense that you meant it in and drawing the conclusion that you were a a killer or something else dastardly. Your earlier actions and the blood that still stained your skin did not help your case. Your eyes widened at the misunderstanding and you also got to your feet - pain in your ankle reminding you to hold your weight on your right side - with your arms out in a placating gesture. “No no no no, that’s not what I meant, I didn’t- I’m talking about the zombies! It doesn’t make any sense but they’re out there and they’re real somehow and I have no clue what’s going on or why but-” you took a deep breath to steady yourself, watching Cry stare at you like a crazy person. It was a justified belief at this point, honestly. “Look, can I just show you what I mean? They’re outside, just, _please_ , stay quiet. I tried to barricade the doors, but I don’t want to test if they’ll hold.”

Although he was still understandably wary of you, he cautiously nodded his acquiescence. Maybe it was something about your desperation that made him give you the benefit of the doubt. Or the real fear that you displayed, especially regarding that you had indeed expended effort in securing the house from _something_ getting in.

Giving Cry a wide berth so that he wouldn’t have reason to be more suspicious of you, you led the way over to a window that was positioned at the front of the house facing the street outside. You stuck your head between the curtains and strained your eyes against the darkened sky, and after a few long seconds of letting your sight adjust, you were able to make out the shambling figures dotted around the environment outside. Luckily (although also somewhat disconcertingly) there was an undead man close enough to the house that you were able to identify his status as not quite living, so you waved Cry over and stepped back.

“There’s a man,” you explained in a hushed voice, “not too far from the house. He’s not alive, but he’s walking around. See for yourself.”

He accepted your invitation, but wouldn’t turn his back to you until you had taken several steps away from him to give him a sense of security. You watched his figure with nervous energy dancing in your stomach, hoping that Cry would understand what was going on and be able to trust you a little bit. It seemed to take a long time for him to back away from the window, but in reality only a few short minutes had passed.

When Cry turned to face you again, what you could see of his face was pale with almost a sickly hue to it. He swallowed thickly, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat at the action. There was a slight tremor to his hands as he slowly walked back over to his chair and sank into it. You followed his lead, watching him and waiting for him to speak first.

“Okay,” he started, “so zombies…”


	4. [Four]

Cry had many questions for you with this newfound revelation of the surreal situation he found himself in. Unfortunately, you also had very little insight to what was going on, which you readily divulged to the man sitting across from you. Neither of you knew where you were, how you got there, how any of this was even possible, or what you should do next. To start, the two of you decided to dig in to the somewhat pitiful meal you had scrounged up from the kitchen.

“I guess I should apologize,” Cry said after finishing off a cracker that had been smothered in peanut butter. He rubbed the back of his neck, the tips of his ears dusting with a light pink colour as he continued, “You were just trying to help me earlier, but I didn’t trust you at all. Sorry about that. And thank you for getting me out of there, really, I appreciate it.”

You quickly shook your head at his apology, eyes wide. “No, I completely understand. I must have looked absolutely bonkers,” you smiled when Cry giggled at your use of such a silly word. “Seriously though, as far as first impressions go, almost stabbing you and then getting caught lifting your shirt gives you more than enough reason to not trust me. I didn’t even think about how that would look if you didn’t know what was going on.”

Cry tilted his head in acknowledgement and set to work slathering peanut butter all over another cracker. The sheer amount of focus he dedicated to the activity made you laugh lightly, making you even more glad that the distrust and hostility had dissipated to allow the masked man across from you to resemble more of the one you remembered from watching his videos.

As if reading your train of thought, Cry glanced over at you and inquired, “So you’re a fan then?” He followed his question up by popping the entire cracker in his mouth and keeping his eyes on your face as he chewed away.

You could feel some blood rush to your face as you ducked your head in embarrassment, but you didn’t deny it. “Yeah, I’ve watched your videos for a while. Does that make this weird for you?”

He gave you a blank stare, as if trying to ascertain if you were being serious or not. “(Y/n), I woke up in a dark room being crushed under a pile of garbage and there are _zombies_ wandering around; _you_ are hardly the weirdest thing about this day.” You let out a breath of relief at hearing that. “If anything, you’ve been the highlight of all this shit,” Cry continued. “If not for you, I’d probably still be up in the attic bleeding out.”

“Oh! Your arm!” you exclaimed, Cry’s statement reminding you of his injury. He hadn’t brought it up in any complaint, but you remembered that you hadn’t exactly accomplished any permanent solution to stop his bleeding before he had woken up and scared you off.

In response to your panic, Cry held up the arm in question. While you had left to change your clothes and give him space, Cry must have assessed his wound and decided to use the materials available to him, because your previously balled up shirt had been ripped - or cut, seeing as you had left your knife up there with him - to make a long enough strip that he had tied around his forearm. The blood had soaked through, discolouring the garment, but when you looked closer you could see that blood didn’t appear to still be welling up through the cloth.

“We should probably clean that up a bit,” you suggested, still eyeing the makeshift bandage. “I’ll see what I can find upstairs and you check around downstairs for anything that can help?”

Cry agreed to your proposal, and the two of you got up to search your respective areas for any sort of medical supplies. The snacking had helped with your energy levels to an extent, but you could still definitely feel the pull of temptation to go into your bedroom and collapse onto the mattress to be dead to the world for the next ten hours. Shaking off that urge, you went to the bathroom first to check around for anything that could be useful to you and Cry.

The bathroom cabinet had various medications for headaches and minor pains, so you funnelled all of the ones to that general capacity into one bottle and stashed it in one of your pockets ( _thank you cargo pants_ , you thought to yourself smugly), leaving the rest of the unfamiliar drugs alone on account of the fact that they could be for any wide array of other illnesses. Minor painkillers would be better than nothing at least. You ignored the toothbrushes and extra soap and contact lens solution, finding a pack of bandaids which you also pocketed with an absentminded shrug.

It wasn’t too surprising that the house was lacking a bit in the ways of heavier duty medical supplies; not all people had expected the zombie apocalypse to hit them out of nowhere you supposed.

With the image of Cry having used your old shirt function as a bandage fresh in your mind, you went to the master bedroom and went through the closet yet again. This time instead of searching for clothes to wear, you were trying to find clothes that you could tear to use in the place of proper bandages. You focused on the feel of the fabric, obviously not wanting a material that was too scratchy. Just something moderately absorbent that would fulfill its new intended purpose.

Once you had picked out a few different clothing items that you deemed suitable for the task, you did a quick survey of the rest of the room to make sure there was nothing else vital that you could spot, then you began your trek back downstairs to reconvene with Cry and see what he had found. After all the injuries were taken care of, you were totally crashing for the night. There had been far too much stress for a single day and you were more than ready for it to be over. Bonus points if you woke up in your own bed with everything you had endured so far nothing more than a result of your over-imaginative and twisted unconscious mind.

Luckily you weren’t left alone with your thoughts - or the looming threat of falling asleep prematurely - for too long before Cry also returns, a few supplies of his own cradled within his arms. He proudly presented a bottle of hydrogen peroxide that still contained ⅓ of the liquid, a bag half filled with cotton balls, a pair of kitchen scissors, and a somewhat crumpled tube of polysporin ointment.

“You first,” you insisted once he had sat down, knowing that his forearm was the most pressing issue. You handed him a couple of the pills you had acquired made sure he swallowed them before moving forward. They wouldn't kick in right away, but it was probably for the best to get the drugs into his system as soon as possible.

He offered no resistance so you scooted your chair closer to his and held out your hand expectantly. Cry held out his left arm for you to go ahead. You gingerly untied the blood soaked cloth and removed it from his person, face twisting in sympathy when the fabric stuck in some places and required additional manoeuvring to extract without tearing away any forming scabs.

The wound almost looked more gruesome with the mostly dried blood caked around it, and you didn’t want to imagine the potential for it to get worse if infection set it. You grabbed the bottle of hydrogen peroxide and debated about the cotton balls before dismissing them for the moment. It would likely be the most helpful for the first bit to just dump some of the liquid over the whole wound to clean it without poking at it too much.

“This is going to hurt quite a bit,” you warned the man sitting in front of you. “Do you want something to bite down on in case you need to yell?” 

Cry didn’t have to think on it too long before nodding and grabbing one of the shirts you had brought down to use as bandages. _Very multipurpose indeed_ , you mused internally as Cry stuffed the item in his mouth and grit his teeth in preparation. You shot a quick “Sorry!” at him right before you poured a decent amount of the hydrogen peroxide over the injury.

The bubbling began almost immediately upon contact, and Cry’s whole body tensed and jerked away from you as several curse words escaped him in muffled shouts. You held on to his arm to the best of your ability, a continuous stream of apologies being muttered under your breath as you counted in your head and watched the white bubbles continue to fizz. It smelled oddly metallic.

You only left the liquid for a measly five seconds, unsettled by how much pain it caused Cry and unsure of how beneficial the tactic actually was. You had heard that it was good for killing bacteria, but there was also some concern that it could hinder healing in some cases.You grabbed one of the other shirts you had brought down and gently dabbed at the wound to remove the excess liquid. The way some of the white bubbles remained and seemed to be under the edges of Cry’s skin made you even more uncomfortable.

You grabbed your water bottle that you hadn’t finished with your meal earlier and poured it over Cry’s arm to flush out any remaining peroxide, then gently wiped at the cut again with the shirt you were holding. You peeked up at the YouTuber to get an idea of how he was feeling and saw that he had removed the fabric from between his teeth but still held his mouth in a pained grimace.

Taking a generous amount of polysporin next, you applied it to the wound cautiously, doing your best not to irritate the inflamed and raw skin. Finally you set about the task of using the kitchen scissors to cut an adequately sized strip out of one of the shirts you had retrieved for that purpose. With your makeshift bandage you meticulously wrapped the clean cloth around the cut, making sure the fresh covering wasn’t too tight to allow airflow and not too loose that it would be of little use. When the knot was complete you made a small flourishing wave with your hands, “Ta-da!” 

Cry examined your handiwork, then directed a small smile at you. “Thank you,” he said genuinely. You waved it off, claiming it was no big deal and apologizing for any pain, but Cry’s eyes followed the movement of your hand and he suddenly reached out and snatched your appendage. You opened your mouth to question his behaviour when he turned your hand over in his and lightly traced the shallow cut on your palm, cutting you off and causing a small wince. “We should get this looked after as well, yeah?” You nodded meekly, having forgotten about your smaller scrapes until that moment.

Your palms were much less dramatic to deal with in comparison to his arm. His procedure mirrored your own in that he started with the hydrogen peroxide, opting to use the cotton balls to swipe along the tender abrasions. It stung and bubbled slightly, but you were positive that it was on a much smaller scale than what it had been for Cry. He also quickly rinsed some water over the areas, then coated them in the polysporin ointment as well before cutting thin strips to wrap around your hands multiple times. It made you feel a bit like a boxer to see your hands wrapped in that manner.

“Thank you,” you echoed Cry’s earlier gratitude, and summoned a toothy grin to send his way. “I guess we should probably-”

“What about your foot?” Cry interrupted. 

Your brows pulled inwards and you started to ask, “How-?”

“You’ve been limping when you walk, is your foot hurt?” Cry expanded, nodding his head down towards the body part being discussed.

“It’s my ankle,” you corrected him. “I jumped out of the second floor of a house earlier to escape zombies and landed on it badly. I don’t think it broke anything, but it definitely hurt.”

Cry let out a low whistle, “Ouch. Can I see it?”

Seeing as you were treating each others wounds, it made sense to have something be down about your ankle, you just weren’t sure if there was much that could be done to help. Regardless, you lifted your leg for Cry to inspect, pink creeping into your face when he carefully placed your foot in his lap. _God, I hope my feet don’t smell too bad…_

Cry was gentle in his examination, his prodding relatively soft as he tested to see what caused pain and what didn’t. After a little while of that, he hummed thoughtfully to himself and started cutting up another one of the pieces of clothes you had brought down. You didn’t get a chance to ask him for his diagnoses before he was explaining it to you. 

“You’re right, I don’t think it’s broken, but probably twisted or sprained. I’m going to wrap it to try to keep it more sturdy, and continuing to keep the weight on it to a minimum is probably a good idea.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” you answered automatically before your mind caught up with your brain as you watched him set to work wrapping your ankle. When you realized how casually you had retorted to him your eyes widened and you went to remedy the situation somehow when his laughter stopped you. You took his cue and chuckled lightly as well. “Listen man, I’m tired okay? I didn’t mean to say that.”

Cry finished off securing your joint then smiled, bigger than any other ones he had shown to you yet. “No worries at all, (Y/n). We should probably get to sleep anyway, I’m sure we have quite the day ahead of us tomorrow. Y’know, assuming this isn’t all just made up and we’ll actually wake up in our own beds after this fever dream.”

“One can hope,” you mumbled, more to yourself than him. “So,” you ventured, “we’re sticking together then? I mean, I have no objections, I just wasn't sure if you’d want that or if you thought you’d be better off on your own or something or… yeah.”

Cry stood, offering you a hand to help you get to your feet and successfully stopping you from rambling any further. “You’ve saved me once already and fed me, I’m afraid you’re stuck with me,” he grinned cheekily at you. “If you don’t mind, yeah, I think it’d be best to stick together. Now that we’ve established that you’re probably not trying to kill me, we probably have a better shot at surviving whatever is going on together. And you seem like an alright person, you seem like you would be a good friend to have in all of this madness.”

You felt yourself smile involuntarily at his casual use of the term “friend”, which was such a Cry thing to do. You offered him your hand to shake, “Cool. Friends?”

Cry played along, grasping your hand and giving it a firm shake as he returned your smile. “Friends,” he confirmed.


	5. [Five]

Neither of you resurfaced from your rooms - Cry had opted to take the master bedroom when you told him your original plan to claim the spare room - until the sun had crept up a decent ways into the morning sky.It was slightly jarring to reach for your phone or check for a clock to check the time, only to be harshly brought back into your current reality. Telling time was something you usually didn’t think twice about, but you supposed it was all going to be primarily estimation from this point forward. It was weird to think about.

Cry had beat you down to the living room area and must have done a more extensive search of the kitchen for food, because, along with the food selection from the night before, he had set out a loaf of bread, some jam, and a few apples and bananas that were still good. With zombies everywhere and productions most definitely shutting down, you recognized that a lot of food items were soon going to be considered luxury or not be accessible at all, especially the longer the world was under this peculiar and dangerous threat.

“Good morning, (Y/n),” Cry greeted you. “Did you sleep okay? I set out what I could find for breakfast, but there are still some other foods like canned beans and stuff. Just thought that wouldn’t be high on the list for ideal breakfast food.”

You suppressed a yawn as you sat down in the same chair as the night before and looked at the food available to you. “Good morning,” you responded when you were done fighting down the reflexive action. “I’m still a bit sleepy, but I feel much better than I did last night. And with all, well, _that_ ,” you gestured to outside in reference to the zombies, “going on, I didn’t quite feel like going back to sleep. And this all looks great, thanks for waiting up for me, you didn’t need to.”

“Nonsense, it would be rude. Plus I thought we could talk about what the hell we’re going to do; after we’ve had some food, of course.”

“Of course,” you agreed with a laugh, returning Cry’s smile before starting your meal.

Breakfast was a relatively quick ordeal, both you and Cry having similar ideas in terms of eating the more perishable foods first, knowing they would be a delicacy in no time and not being willing to waste the opportunity presented to you in the moment. Once you were finished, you leaned back in your chair and pondered the second part of your rough agenda for the day.

You didn’t even know where you were in the first place, so that was obviously a drawback for planning your next steps. And, when you thought about it, you didn’t even know exactly _when_ you were; both you and Cry had admitted to not knowing how you had gotten to where either of you woke up, and there had been nothing familiar to you in the area when you had been outdoors before. No matter how you were looking at it, things were not adding up in the slightest and it was not reassuring.

Cry’s voice broke you out of your thoughts, “I don’t think we should stay here much longer.” You gave your attention over to him and he elaborated, “We know there’s a lot of zombies in the area, even if we don’t really know where we are. And staying here won’t be any help to us for figuring anything out. I think we should look for other people and see if they know anything about this craziness.”

“That makes sense,” you replied, nodding your head as you thought out your next words. “Zombie movies are usually wary of people, but neither of us have any clue what’s going on, so as long as we’re careful about it, finding people could be a really helpful step. The only problem is I also have no idea how we’re supposed to find other people…” 

Cry deflated slightly at that, not having thought of a good solution to that particular impediment. Quickly recovering though, he straightened himself and shrugged his shoulders. “We’ll figure something out. Besides, we’ll have each other at very least, so that’s a lot better than going at this alone!”

You appreciated the optimism of the masked man and barely had to force it when the corners of your mouth quirked upwards at him. In all honesty, it was also very reassuring to hear again that he didn’t sound opposed to being with you. You still felt a little awkward about knowing him from YouTube and Twitch, and while you had been acting casual about it, that was very much for Cry’s benefit. You weren’t quite sure you had fully processed the situation yet, especially with so much being thrown at you at the same time. It gave you some piece of mind to know that Cry wasn’t exceptionally creeped out by you being a fan.

“So, I guess the first thing we should do is gather some stuff? Food and whatever else would be useful,” Cry’s head tilted to the side, words coming out sounding more like a question than a statement. He was no more sure of how to approach this than you were.

“Sounds good,” you said as you got to your feet. Your left ankle was sore, but you were pleased that there was already some improvement for it based on how much pain it was causing you. “Same thing as last time? You got down here, I get upstairs?” 

Cry agreed to the arrangement and the two of you split off once again to more thoroughly search the house. Upstairs, you paused by the child’s bedroom and debated whether or not it would be worth it to investigate inside more closely; you weren’t inclined to believe a young child would have much beneficial to you in the ways of survival, and you didn’t like the suffocatingly somber atmosphere the room exuded. Weighing your options, you ultimately decided against disturbing the room and instead moved on to the hallway’s closet.

Expecting mostly useless things like cleaning supplies or toys or extra blankets and towels (which there was a decent amount of), you were pleasantly surprised to find a couple of quality hiking backpacks and a small bin of what appeared to be a mess of camping gear tucked away into the corner of the storage space. It would seem that the couple who had owned this household liked to do some casual camping or hiking, which was extremely fortunate for you and Cry. You dragged the box into the hallway to give yourself more space and light to dig through its interior.

The backpacks themselves would obviously be useful, so you checked them both to make sure they weren’t hiding any more goodies before setting them aside to take down once you were done searching all of upstairs. Scavenging through the rest of the bin, you were pleased when you picked out a couple of hunting knives, a small hatchet, and a sturdy looking flashlight. Unfortunately there was no tent to be found, but the tactical weapons definitely reconciled that loss for you.

The rest of your search turned out to be less exciting, although you did snag a pair of reliable hiking boots that you found in the back of the master bedroom’s closet, swapping out your current shoes for them. That was another oddity that you hadn’t dwelled on too much - the clothes that you had woken up in were fairly generic, just a plain t-shirt, some jeans, and running shoes, but they weren’t overly familiar to you. They may have been clothes you owned or they may not have been, you honestly didn’t know. Either way, your new outfit was sure to serve you much better for a world infested with the walking dead. You made a mental note to talk to Cry about raiding the previous inhabitants’ closet to see if he would want to switch out his clothes as well.

With a sense of accomplishment at your loot, you headed back down to the living room area to meet up with Cry again. You could hear him humming to himself in a different room and grinned to yourself as you sat down. While you waited for him to finish with his scouring, you took the time to check up on your injuries.

Carefully lifting the bandages on your hands enough to be able to peek under them, you were glad to see that they were well on their way to scabbing over. They still appeared fairly raw though, so you ultimately decided that the bandages would have to stay on for at least another few days. Having the cloth as a barrier to outside contaminants and contact made a difference in making using your hands less painful, so you were very thankful for that aspect of it. Your ankle, too, was faring better. Still swollen under the wrap, but able to keep you steady enough, and a lot less painful with you avoiding putting too much strain on it. All in all, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

The distant humming grew steadily louder and you twisted around in your chair to watch as Cry entered the room, arms filled with a wide assortment of items. He caught your eyes on him and shot you a quick smile as he unceremoniously dumped his findings on the floor in front of you and proceeded to sink down onto the floor as well, ignoring the other chair. Shaking your head at this slightly strange behaviour, you slipped forward off your seat to join the masked man on the rug, not even bothering to question his choice of seating arrangement.

“You look pleased with yourself,” you started, verbally nudging for Cry to offer an explanation for his apparent exuberant mood. “Find anything good?” 

Cry gestured to his heap of goods set before you. “A decent amount of food, some tools, a box of matches, and a multitool - complete with a can opener thing!”

Most of what Cry had collected was indeed food, which you would hazard was a good thing to have in these times. You separated all the nonperishable foods from the rest of the supplies Cry had gathered, knowing they would be packed to be taken with you and not really needing to review them further.

You pulled a red toolbox towards you, examining its contents. The screws and nails packed in the different small compartments would be pretty useless to you at this moment, but the tools themselves offered the promise of other potential uses, mainly in the sense of being able to double as weapons. In the end, you and Cry agreed that the crowbar would be the most useful out of the various tools. The screwdriver could be helpful, but wouldn’t be a first choice, and while the hammer looked promising, the thought of how much force and how many times you might have to hit the zombie to deal a lethal blow seemed like too much of a drawback.

The matches were an easy choice; they were light, portable, and very practical for survival. The aforementioned multitool also fit into that category, and was set in the growing pile for what you and Cry planned to carry on your impending journey.

“Upstairs I found some camping stuff, which I thought could be very useful. A couple of backpacks, some knives, a hatchet, and a flashlight. There’s also good clothes in the bedroom closet; that’s where I took what I’m wearing from.”

Cry quickly glanced over what you had brought down, and had no disagreement with any of its usefulness, so the two of you set to work organizing what you had gleaned from the house. The food was split evenly between the two of you, both to distribute the weight of it and so that neither of you would be at a disadvantage if separated from the other. Cry ended up taking the multitool and matched in his pack, while you got the flashlight. For the weapons, you each got one of the hunting knives from the camping gear, and Cry claimed the hatchet while you took the crowbar, tucking it into your belt for the time being.

Your bag wasn’t overly light, but the quality of the backpack distributed the weight well across your back and shoulders, and you deemed it easily manageable to carry around. You felt a lot more confident having this level of preparation; obviously things weren’t ideal, but at least you had supplies and someone watching your back.

“Want to check the bedroom closet for different clothes?” you asked Cry as he finished fiddling with the straps on his pack to adjust them to him. “Unless you want to go with your jeans and t-shirt instead. We could match, be a real team,” you joked. “Besides, cargo pants are comfier than jeans anyway.”

“I’m down for a wardrobe change,” Cry said. “Want to brainstorm some ideas on where to go while I check out my options?” 

You nodded your confirmation to this plan and watched Cry ascend the steps before pondering your next steps. It was still only around late morning or midday, based on how high the sun was in the sky, so heading out today was definitely still an option. You had already gone over the house for supplies, so lingering here wasn’t necessary in any sense. The thing you needed to figure out the most was just where exactly you would head out to when you left. Not knowing where you were was an obstacle for that section of your planning.

You wandered over to the window and took a look outside. There seemed to be less undead on the street than the night before, but there were still a few roaming around. Well, walking down the middle of the street probably wouldn’t be the best escape route regardless of how many zombies were out there; it was too out in the open and in an area that was generally too populated. It didn’t seem like you were in any big city, but it was likely best to avoid too many residential areas.

You walked to the back of the house and found another window to scan out of, inspecting the landscape for a better grasp on what would be the best course of action. Out back looked much more promising; there were a few houses a bit further back than the one you were in, but you could see through them enough to make out a forested area not too far away. There was bound to be less threat of zombies in the wooded area, but this vantage point wasn’t the best for scouting out the area in scrutiny.

In pursuit of a higher viewpoint, you trekked up the stairs to the second floor, and almost collided with Cry as he exited the master bedroom at the top of the stairs. You flailed backwards for a second and felt your stomach jump as you started to lose your balance, leaning too far back for comfort with there being no solid ground to catch you if you fell.

Cry’s arms shot out to steady you, gripping you firmly on your upper arms and pulling you forwards. You stumbled from the sudden movement before straightening out, one hand held over your chest as you realized how close you had been to falling down the stairs. Looking up at Cry to thank him, you also came to the realization that you were right up in his personal space, just a tad too close to his downturned face as he made sure you were secure.

He let his arms drop and you took a step back, mindful of where the steps were, and peered sheepishly at Cry. “Thanks,” you said earnestly, tips of your ears burning. Eager to push past the awkwardness, you rushed to ask, “Did you find new clothes alright?”

Cry glanced down at his attire, bringing your attention to his new outfit. He had chosen to go with a dark t-shirt under a thicker looking blue and green flannel shirt, and was sporting a pair of dark grey cargo pants and the men’s pair of hiking boots you had seen in the closet earlier. The two of you looked like you were ready to go on a hiking adventure somewhere together, which you supposed wasn’t too far off if you looked at it from a different perspective.

“You were right, this does feel much better to be in. I also grabbed a sweater to shove in my backpack, just in case it gets colder later and the flannel isn’t enough,” Cry explained. Then he eyed you in a questioning manner. “What had you in such a hurry to get up here? Everything okay downstairs?”

“Oh, yeah, everything’s fine, I was just coming up here to try and get a better view outside,” you rushed out. “There’s a forest out back that I wanted to see; it might be a good direction to head.”

“Cool, care to show me?” Cry asked, and you motioned for him to follow you into the bedroom, seeing as it would be facing the direction you wanted to be able to see.

A higher vantage point proved to be a good idea, as it allowed you to see the pillar of grey trailing up into the sky from somewhere within the trees you were examining from a distance. The smoke was floating up in a relatively thin spire, which suggested the source of flames it was coming from was likely small. Perhaps a campfire? If it was a campfire, that would imply that there would be people nearby, maybe some who would be able to fill you and Cry in on why the dead weren’t so dead anymore.

You voiced this out loud to Cry, saying that it was the best plan of action you guys would likely have. He was silent as he stared intently at the line of smoke, eyes unreadable and eyebrows scrunched slightly as he had some sort of internal debate happening. When you asked him what he was thinking, he stayed quiet for a few more seconds before finally answering.

“I think we should go check it out, but we need to be careful about it. We don’t know what we’re walking into, so we should be prepared for anything.” You had no counterargument to that, so you just nodded and Cry turned his gaze to you, blue eyes still murky with thought. “You ready?”

“As much as I can be,” you replied. “But I like your idea of the extra sweater in case it gets too cold overnight or something, so I’m actually going to grab one as well.” You followed through on your word, shoving the men’s sweater (so that it would fit over your current one more easily) into your backpack then making sure everything was secure once again. “Okay,” you said when you were done, “let’s do this.”

You both donned your backpacks and made sure to have your weapons at the ready, then cleared the blockade from the back door that you had set up the previous day. You stood in front of the closed door and took a steadying breath before nodding to each other and swinging the door open, stepping outside into the unknown. After making sure there were no immediate threats, you and Cry set out in the direction of the forest, eyes turned skywards to follow the trail of smoke that would hopefully lead you to a friend rather than a foe.


	6. [Six]

The first few minutes of the venture were tense, neither of you wanting to speak and risk attracting unwanted attention. There didn’t seem to be too many zombies out and about, but the odd straggler did cross your path. You, having already killed one, had a bit less hesitation when you stepped forward to embed your hunting knife into the base of a zombie’s skull while it was still facing away from you. You noticed that Cry’s face paled at seeing the gruesome act, but he didn’t say anything about it and actually took the initiative to take down the next reanimated corpse that you couldn’t sneak by. You offered him silent reassurance in placing your hand on his shoulder when he paused after the zombie had fallen, and you felt him shaking slightly beneath you. If the queasy feeling residing in your stomach was anything to go by, you weren’t exactly handling this as calmly as movie protagonists often did either, so you could feel for Cry. Especially when you took into consideration that this would be his first true interaction with the undead.

The mood was decidedly grim, but you felt relief for the growing distance between yourself and the town you were leaving behind. The closer you got to the forest, the less zombies you came across, which was another good thing. You and Cry had both been so terse as you made your way through the various backyards of houses, and didn’t feel safe to so much as speak a single word to each other until you were a more comfortable distance away from the last house on the outskirts of the area.

“This is so messed up,” Cry mumbled eventually, quietly enough that you have to take a second to determine whether or not he actually said it. The way he was staring at the sickeningly congealed blood coating his hatchet led you to believe he had, in fact, spoken out loud.

“You feel okay? The first zombie I killed definitely screwed me up a bit,” you sympathized, hoping that mentioning your own struggle with it would somehow help him a bit. “They always make it seem like it’s nothing in the movies, but it’s still just…” you shuddered, not having the proper words to finish your sentence.

“I’ll be okay,” he answered lowly. You weren’t fully convinced by his tone, but didn’t feel like it was a matter to be pushed at the moment.

Any further conversation was smothered by you and Cry entering the forest, where the density of the trees made for an uneasy atmosphere. Your mind was working in overdrive imagining all the dangers that could be lurking hidden within the shadows. It took you a few moments before you realized why the forest was so eerie; it was completely silent. Not a single chirp from a bird or quiet buzz of any flying insect pierced the suffocating silence. It was unnatural.

The crunching of your shoes on top of the underbrush sound magnified and make you wince every time one of you snapped a twig underfoot by accident. With the sun only filtering in through the tops of the canopy sporadically, it was difficult to tell how long you and Cry had wandered when his arm suddenly shot out in front of you, effectively halting your movements (and almost giving you a heart attack).

“What-?” 

“Shh… I think I heard something.” He whispered so quietly that you had to lean in a tiny bit to hear him, even though he was right next to you. Your heart rate picked up when you registered his words, and you strained your ears to try and make out any noises other than yours and Cry’s breathing.

It took a few moments to register, but you could vaguely make out a disturbance in the dead silence as well. It wasn’t yet distinguishable enough to determine what may have been causing it, but it was the first sign of life that you and Cry had come across so far.

The pace you move at slowed down as you both attempted to cause less noise with your footfalls, but some noise was inevitable, even if it made you cringe in paranoia every time you felt that too much noise was being made. So little as the soft rustling of your clothes seemed impossibly amplified to your anxious mind. You swore that your heart was beating quicker with every step you took towards whatever was the source of the noise.

You were so inwardly focused that you almost missed Cry stopping in front of you suddenly. You nearly bumped into his back from how abrupt his lack of motion was. You were just about to quietly question him on his action and try to peer around him when he swiftly took off again, this time at an increased pace.

“Cry!” you hissed after him, only stalling for a couple of seconds before following his lead. He made no indication of having heard you, so you called his name again slightly louder, but received the same results.

Resigning yourself to this new turn of events, you hurried after Cry to see if you could find out what had grabbed his attention so readily. Your question was soon answered as you became aware of the fact that the indistinct sound that you had heard earlier was now able to be recognized as voices. Cry must have heard them and gotten eager at the prospect of reaching your destination.

You caught up to Cry when a small clearing was no more than forty feet was within view, and in that clearing you could make out two figures that seemed to be chatting amicably as they moved around the small campsite that was set up. They did not seem to be aware of your presence yet, which you took advantage of and dragged Cry with you to take cover behind a tree. The two of you huddled together as you slyly poked your heads out around the trunk of the tree to watch the mysterious figures from a distance.

Something about them must have struck something in Cry, because he unexpectedly took a tentative step forwards, leaving the cover of the tree to move closer to the clearing. You tried to reach for him again, but he was already in motion, walking purposefully towards the people.

Cursing quietly under your breath to yourself, you also stepped out from behind the tree and followed in Cry’s footsteps, but made sure to have your knife at the ready in case things went south. You weren’t sure if you’d be able to kill a living person and you _really_ didn’t want to have to test that, but you wanted to be at least somewhat prepared as you walked into this uncertain setting.

When Cry had closed the gap between you and the strangers considerably, they finally took notice of your approach and readied their weapons in response. Your throat tightened at their reaction and you quickened your pace to catch up to Cry, who did not have his hatchet at the ready for some unknown reason. _God dammit Cry!_

You were surprised when you got close enough to register the shock that appeared on the two men’s faces as they lowered their weapons (which, upon closer inspection, you noticed were just a couple of sturdy branches from the forest floor) and had their mouths fall open. They seemed oddly familiar, it was making your brain itch, and you were sure you would be able to recognize them if your mind hadn’t been so clouded with the stress that the whole ordeal had caused you.

It all clicked into place when Cry shouted out, “Felix? Ken?” 

“Cry?!” Both men responded in unison, disbelief clearly etched across their facial features.

_Oh my God…_

The three men ahead of you came into contact and only paused briefly before the two newcomers shook Cry’s hand excitedly and clapped him on the back in a friendly gesture of comradery. Your progress towards them, on the other hand, had stopped in its tracks as you continued to attempt to rationalize how this was plausible if at all even possible - which, apparently it was, judging by the two other YouTubers being right in front of you. One freak coincidence of you running into Cryaotic by chance? Fine, okay, a bit weird, but you were willing to roll with it and try to brush it off as an absurd happenstance. Running into PewDiePie and CinnamonToastKen literally the next day? A bit harder to brush off as just another happy coincidence. What on earth was going on?!

Attention was brought to you when you heard the easily identifiable voice of Felix Kjellberg projected in your direction. “Hey, Cry, who’s that?”

Momentarily shaking yourself from your contemplation, you felt a wave of shyness wash over you, but upon receiving an encouraging look from Cry, you forced yourself to resume your earlier path to meet your three other companions on the edge of the campsite clearing.

Cry held out a hand towards you as he stated, “This is (Y/n). (Y/n), this is…“ he paused on his introduction, then tilted his head curiously at you as you reached his side, “Actually, if you knew me, do you already know Felix and Ken too?”

Felix and Ken glanced between you and Cry, confusion evident on their faces. Before giving your embarrassed blush time to fully set in, you blurted out, “Yeah, Pewds and CinnamonToastKen.”

“Ah,” Ken realized, catching on quicker than Felix, “a fan I take it?”

Before you could respond, Felix stepped forward and grabbed your hand in order to shake it, excited at the prospect of you knowing him from YouTube. “You’re a bro? A woman of taste, I see,” he winked at you, and you couldn’t help but laugh at his antics. His grin widened from your positive reaction.

You took the opportunity of the Swede’s closeness to observe him and Ken in more detail. Similar to what you and Cry had previously been wearing, both of the men were in plain t-shirts, loose-fitting jeans, and generic shoes. The only variants were Felix having a pair of headphones around his neck oddly enough, and Ken adorning a bear hat as he sometimes did in videos. You glanced over at Cry, taking in his poker-faced mask and wondered if that was somehow connected. All of your YouTuber companions had some kind of link to their YouTube personality.

Voicing your observation, you turned your face back towards Felix, “Um, it’s nice to meet you, even if it’s under very weird circumstances, but why are you wearing headphones?”

Felix backed up and poked at the offending piece of equipment, small pout taking over his mouth. “I just kinda had them on when I woke up. I was going to ditch them, but my ears got cold last night and they helped a bit,” he shrugged. “At least Ken got an actual hat.” He directed an accusatory glare at his friend, who was not perturbed in the slightest and just stuck his tongue out at Felix in playful provocation.

“So you guys don’t know how you got here either then?” Cry intercepted, picking up on that aspect of Felix’s answer.

Ken shook his head to Cry, then answered, “Nope. We both just woke up here. Last thing I remember before waking up in a random shed was laying down to try and nap off a headache.”

“Yeah, same, except I was lucky enough to wake up in a dumpster.” Felix rolled his eyes, emphasizing his sarcasm at being pleased about where he had found himself. “What about you two?”

Cry gave a pained smile, and you didn’t have to wonder about what he was thinking about. Remembering his frame being dwarfed beneath the pile in the attic was hard enough for you, and you hadn’t been the one directly impacted by it. “I woke up slowly being crushed by a pile of junk in an attic. Still would be if (Y/n) hadn’t found me and gotten me out of there.” His right hand ghosted over the bandage on his arm and then moved to absentmindedly scratch at his chest as he swallowed, but he still managed to give you a minuscule upturn of one corner of his mouth to show his appreciation for you helping him.

Felix and Ken turned their gazes expectantly to you with Cry mentioning you by name, obviously inviting you to share your piece next. You stumbled over your words a bit from the attention suddenly on you before managing to get out, “I woke up in the middle of the street.” You really needed to work on getting past your heightened nerves at being in front of some of your idols. “I didn’t realize what was going on until I was attacked by a zombie in a house though. It caused a ruckus and attracted more zombies, so I ran and ended up accidentally hiding out in the place Cry was trapped in. We ended up coming out here because we saw the smoke from your campfire actually.”

“How did you meet up then?” Cry asked. The YouTubers looked at each other before Felix took the lead in explaining.

“Well, when I woke up in the disgusting dumpster,” he wrinkled his nose in distaste to really drive the point home, “I got out of there as quickly as I could. Like you said, I didn’t know what was going on or where I was, so I went to the nearest house to see if I could find anyone to help me. There was no answer, but I heard something out back, so I went to go see if someone was in the backyard. It was coming from the shed, a banging and rattling like something was trying to get out - I swear, it was like something out of a video game; I was expecting a jumpscare, but it ended up being Ken locked in there.

“His banging on the door must have been loud enough that some zambies ended up coming over to investigate, so Ken and I hightailed it out of there as fast as we could.” You couldn’t bite down the grin that fought to the surface at the goofy way the Swedish man said zombies. “We didn’t have anything helpful really for protection or survival, so we didn’t want to run into any more zambies, but had to chance going into a house to check for some supplies. We only managed to grab a few things before we realized we weren’t alone in the house and had to run for it again. Luckily we snagged a lighter, otherwise last night would have been a lot colder,” he gestured to the barely smoking campfire. “We camped out here last night, hoping most of the dead would stick to the area by the houses.”

You and Cry listened intently to Felix’s retelling, understanding the confusion and panic that must have been high for them as well during the past couple of days. You still weren’t quite sure how any of this was possible, but you supposed it would be useless to ask any of the famous YouTubers, seeing as they were in the exact same position as you and likely didn’t have any insight into the question either.

Also knowing that being well supplied was one of the main factors that led you to feeling the slightest bit more secure (the other one being that you had Cry by your side, so you weren’t facing it all alone), you dropped your backpack to the ground in front of you and shuffled around a bit inside as you extracted the extra sweater you had grabbed. Holding it triumphantly, you offered it to Felix in one hand, the hunting knife you had in the other.

His eyes widened and he went to refuse, but you cut him off by saying, “Take them. I have a crowbar to use and already have a sweater. I think Cry also grabbed an extra sweater, and he has a hatchet, so Ken could use his knife.” Cry readily agreed to this proposition and mirrored your movements of retrieving his extra sweater from his bag, then offering both it and his knife to Ken.

Both men thanked you genuinely, and you could tell that they felt understandably better at having that extra layer of clothing and a weapon of their own to wield. You were feeling a lot more thankful for having a comfy bed with blankets to sleep in the previous night now having become aware of the conditions these two had faced.

“I can see why you roped (Y/n) into allowing you to stick around, Cry, she’s a life-saver!” Ken beamed, nudging Cry and laughing lightly.

Cry joined in with his own chuckle, adding, “Very literally true. Makes me even more glad that she found me rather than you two idiots.”

“Hey!” Felix protested, but when he went to defend himself further he seemed to get stuck and ended up just shrugging and going along with Cry’s assessment without a fuss. His reaction elicited more laughter from the group and you felt a small weight lift off of your chest that you hadn’t even noticed had settled there. You were starting to feel like maybe things would turn out okay. It felt good to laugh a little.

There was an unspoken decision between all of you that you would join forces, and after staying in the clearing for a bit longer to share some food with Felix and Ken - breakfast for them, a snack for you and Cry - the four of you set off together. Felix and Ken were visibly looking and feeling better than when you had first stumbled upon them, and you assumed it had much to do with the reassurance of supplies and friends along with finally getting some food into them since waking up here.

The boys were quick to start joking around with one another, comfortably slipping into their familiar friendship roles, and you found yourself hanging back the slightest bit. You knew it wasn’t at all intentional or even thought about on their end, but you did feel like an outsider to an extent. You knew them, but not in the way they knew each other, and none of them had ever met you before, so it made sense that there would be some kind of disconnect. It felt almost intrusive in a sense, and you didn’t want to make things awkward, so you didn’t mind trailing behind those few steps.

Besides, watching and listening to their banter was entertaining enough without your involvement. You were sure they got enough of the fangirling reactions from people and were determined not to annoy them, even if that meant staying more on the quiet side.

“You shy?” You jumped a bit at the interruption to your thoughts, not having noticed Cry slow his pace to walk beside you.

Even though you were more comfortable with Cry due to longer exposure, you couldn’t shake that little bit of awkwardness that you still felt sometimes hung in the air. You shrugged with one shoulder in a non-committal way and mumbled, “I don’t know, a little bit I guess…” 

Cry let that sit for a couple of seconds, then tilted his head an inch as he said, “You asked me yesterday if you being a fan made it weird for me, but I never asked if that makes it weird for _you_.” That hit the nail on the head you supposed. “Is that what’s going on?” he pressed gently, voice soft in what you assumed was an effort not to draw attention from the two men walking ahead of you. You were thankful for that at least.

“A little,” you admitted quietly, eyes twitching briefly to Cry’s mask as if to reassure yourself that he wouldn’t be upset in any capacity for you saying that. “I guess it’s just… well, I never thought I would meet any of you guys, y’know? I watched your videos all the time, but, I don’t know, maybe it’s because I don’t want to embarrass myself or, like, annoy you guys or anything.”

“Nah,” Cry grinned over at you, “I get what you mean, but that’s not very likely to happen. You said you watched our videos? Then you know we all do embarrassing shit all the time. It’s a very low-risk judgement zone where we’re concerned. And,” at this Cry allowed his voice to raise in volume to be overheard by the other two, “as for annoying… have you met Pewds?”

“Hey, I heard that!” Felix exclaimed in mock outrage, slipping back to fall into step on the other side of you.

“I know,” Cry answered unabashedly, “I wasn’t trying to be quiet.

“You’re a jerk.”

“You love me.” Cry fired back without hesitation.

“Nope,” Felix replied, popping the ‘p’ dramatically. “You’ve been replaced. (Y/n) is my new best friend.” To prove this, he threw a lanky arm around your shoulders and tugged you to be walking closer to him than Cry. The unexpected movement caused you to stumble for a moment, but you regained your footing quickly enough. It helped that Felix was there to support your weight, although he was also the one to cause the small mishap.

Cry rolled his eyes and Ken piped up from the front, a hand held over his heart and a loud gasp signalling his chagrin at this new development. “You’re replacing me? What did I do?” Ken demanded, projecting a pained look onto his features at Felix’s betrayal. 

You knew that your face was bright red from being caught in the middle of their shenanigans, but you were also enjoying the lighthearted atmosphere and casual friendliness that was being extended your way. You turned your gaze back to Cry to catch him wearing a soft smile and a light dancing in his eyes as he watched the scene unfold. You felt your stomach jump a tad at the sight and hurried to focus back on the bickering between Felix and Ken as the former tightened his hold on you defensively to some retort thrown his way.

Cry had made you feel more than welcomed in such a simple manner, and you felt it was much less intimidating to interact with the others as you continued on your way with the fake argument behind you all. The journey passed quickly with the conversation flowing between four people, and you were grateful for the distraction of how _normal_ it all was. It didn’t feel too terribly long before you were emerging from the thinning line of trees to come across what seemed to be an interstate highway.

The roads, of course, were abandoned. Well, there were still cars littered on the pavement, but none were moving or had occupants in them. You stepped forward slowly, proceeding with caution as you moved across the road to investigate more. On the opposite side of the the forest where you had come from, a stretch of the guard rails caught your attention in the fact that it had obviously been hit with a fast moving vehicle that had ripped the metal from its posts.

The tire tracks continued down into the steeper ditch on the other side, and something about it made you feel uneasy but also compelled to see it. Something didn’t feel right…

You were barely aware of your three companions following behind you closely as you approached the side of the road where the destroyed guard rail was. You peered over the side, down the slope that led to another smaller cluster of woodland, and laid your eyes on a totalled cop car that was on its side at the bottom.


	7. [Seven]

You moved forward excruciatingly slowly, as though the wreck were a skittish animal that you were trying not to startle. This all looked so damn familiar and left you feeling like there was a heavy stone lodged in your stomach, but you couldn’t quite understand it. Nobody stopped you, they all seemed to be in a similar trance as you were.

You took advantage of the gouges along the sharp drop of the ditch to control your descent to the car and felt another stone drop into your stomach when you saw the interior of the police cruiser. Broken glass, blood, general disarray from the tumble it took to reach its resting spot… it didn’t look good for whoever had been inside.

But there was a trail of blood that led from the smashed back passenger window around to the front of the car, which you followed to investigate. A police uniform clad body was slumped over prone not too far from the car, and you might have assumed the old officer had been thrown from the vehicle in the crash, but his overall state suggested that wasn’t the case.

The majority of his head had been blasted apart, presumably by the shotgun carelessly tossed aside, and although there was a decent pool of blood from that fatal injury, there was also a blood trail that led from his body to a farther away alarming stain of dried blood on the ground. If you had to guess, you’d say the crash may have killed him the first time, but it had been someone else’s responsibility to kill him the second time. The person who had been in the back of the cruiser when it had crashed, going by the blood smears you followed.

A hand touched your shoulder and you nearly leaped out of your skin in fright before you turned and realized it was just Cry who had snuck up behind you while you had been busy working out your theory of the events that had taken place. You placed a hand over your racing heart and willed it to calm down.

“Cry,” you scolded with a shaky chuckled, “don’t scare me like that!”

Cry held his hands up in surrender to display his innocence, “Sorry friend, I didn’t mean to. I wanted to get a closer look too.” His eyes swept around the scene before they met yours again. “You know, it’s really weird, this whole thing is giving me mad déjà vu.”

“Yeah, I know, I have a weird feeling in my stomach, like something isn’t right,” you verbalized, warily observing your surroundings.

Your conversation was interrupted by Felix ungracefully tumbling down the last few metres of the ditch and Ken hurrying after him. You almost laughed at the display of clumsiness, but then you spotted the serious expressions on both of their faces and swallowed your brief mirth.

“Hate to break it to you guys, but we gotta move, _now_ ,” Ken huffed out as he kept his momentum to continue moving forward past you at a fast pace.

You were about to ask what the rush was as Felix grabbed yours and Cry’s arms and began dragging you with him, but then you could hear an ominous background noise you hadn’t noticed before that was slowly building. Your eyes widened in alarm as you looked back over your shoulder to locate the source of the sound just in time to watch as a zombie appeared over the ledge and, with no concept of the drop imminent, toppled over on the steep slope and crashed down to the bottom. 

You didn’t bother watching it get back up - you knew it wouldn’t be phased by the fall - and instead focused on getting your feet beneath you properly and running without Felix needing to drag you. Cry had also worked out what was going on at this point and was getting his hatchet at the ready in case any zombies got too close.

You momentarily forgot about your tender ankle, but were reminded of its condition when a sharp pain shot up through your leg upon you placing your full weight on it as you went to run. You let out a yelp of pain and surprise as you stumbled in your effort to immediately remedy the mistake. You saw Cry, who was the closest to you, falter in his steps, but you gasped out that you were fine and gritted your teeth as you kept going at a slower pace due to the limp you had to incorporate into your movement.

With the four of you crashing through the underbrush at high speeds, it was no surprise that you weren’t particularly concerned about your volume at that given time, panic driven by the pursuit of cannibalistic corpses overshadowing any thought going towards a stealthier retreat. This, however, may have proved to be more hindering than anything, because your loud fleeing appeared to have garnered the attention of all the other zombies that had been idly shambling around nearby in the forest.

You were made aware of this when one you hadn't noticed slumped against a tree almost managed to snag you from the side as you bolted past and a shrill scream escaped you from the close call, pushing you to move faster. While the zombies weren’t the fastest moving threats, there seemed to be an oddly high amount of them around the area and you knew all too well how lethal contact with them could be. All it took was one bite to spread the infection and you were done for.

When you looked up and saw a tall wooden fence ahead, you felt dread settle over you at first, but then saw that Ken and Felix had already made it over and that Cry was in the process of jumping over it as well. You didn’t risk checking how close the zombies behind you were but kept up your speed and threw yourself into the air as high as you could off of your uninjured leg.

Your fingertips brushed the edge of the fence top, but fell just short of being able to find enough purchase to get a good enough grip to be useful. Knowing it would be even harder to jump that height from standstill, you changed tactics and banged on the fence with your fist with a shout for help from your companions. Unable to resist the urge, you turned around to see the small horde of zombies eagerly approaching you and your hand hovered over the crowbar resting at your hip as you prepared to put up a fight if the boys couldn’t help you in time.

“(Y/n)!” a deep voice called from above you, and you looked up to see Cry hanging over the top of the fence with his arm outstretched to you.

Not wasting any time hesitating, you once again bent your knees and sprung from the ground. As expected, you were nowhere near close enough to reach the ledge yourself, but Cry’s reach was far enough that he was able to clasp a hand tightly around yours and pull your weight upwards. His other hand came down to secure you around the waist and provide more support to stabilize you in the air, giving you the chance to swing your leg over the fence. Doing this at the same time that Cry tugged to help you caused you to overbalance and sent you both toppling down gracelessly into a heap on the other side.

That heap, it turned out, was much more human than ground.

You were fully tangled up with the top half of Cry, while the bottom half of his body was sprawled over a fallen Ken and Felix. All in all it was a little bit of a mess.

“Ah, sorry, sorry!” Your face was giving off enough heat that you were positive Cry could feel it. You scrambled to remove yourself from the pile, but failed on account of no one else helping as they all burst out into fits of giggles.

Maybe it was out of relief from barely escaping a perilous situation or just in general from the silliness of your position after such a dramatic high of adrenaline rush. Cry’s chest shook with his giggles where your face was half smooshed up against it and his one arm that was still around you tightened unconsciously in his laughing fit. You resigned yourself to this unexpected close proximity until they were finished and found your mind very preoccupied with how strangely comfortable you felt even though your body was slightly twisted unconventionally. 

It didn’t take long for the boys to compose themselves and set about extracting themselves from one another. With their cooperation, it wasn’t too much of a hassle to correct everyone’s jumbled limbs and sort everyone out. You hoped your face wasn’t as red anymore.

“Thanks for saving me back there Cry, my ankle messed up my jump.” Now that the mood had settled you felt the need to properly thank Cry for pulling you over the fence. If not for him, you would still be on the other side of the wooden planks where you could hear dozens of bodies frantically pressing up against it in their desperation for a fresh meal. You were glad the fence seemed sturdy enough to hold up against them, as long as the number of zombies pushing at it stayed relatively small.

Cry was brushing off the seat of his pants and looked up at you when you addressed him. “Well, I had to pay you back somehow for saving me yesterday,” he said, scratching the back of his head with a shrug of his shoulders. “Felix and Ken were the ones that boosted me up so that I could reach you anyway, so it wasn’t all me.”

You turned to the two famous YouTubers and acknowledged their help, thanking them genuinely as well, to which they both replied with, “Of course!”

Naturally the attention then turned to your new immediate surroundings and your group examined the backyard that you had hopped into. It was a generic enough backyard, definitely on the nicer side with a treehouse set up and even an inground pool with the cover on. You would have loved to be able to have a treehouse as your own little safe haven if you were a kid, and a pool during hot summers was ideal. You stepped towards the tree to check it out more closely when your foot knocked something over.

Looking down you were met with the sight of a small pink tea set. 

A rush of familiarity hit you like a truck colliding with you and you furrowed your brows as you scrutinized the backyard more closely, staring hard at the house and the treehouse, marvelling at the sense that you had seen this exact setup before somewhere.

“Holy fuck,” Cry exhaled in disbelief from just behind you. You twisted on the spot to tilt your head quizzically at him. “The police car, the dead cop, the fence, the treehouse, the house… I know why I keep getting déjà vu. I _have_ seen this all before; when I played _The Walking Dead_.”

Your mind swam at that and you fit all the pieces of the puzzle together with the same outcome that Cry had just spoken out loud. But… that was impossible! It had to be a coincidence, there was absolutely no way that it would make sense for it to be real, for you to be _inside_ a video game.

 _Just like there was no way that zombies could ever be real?_ a nasty little voice in the back of your mind whispered.

“No shit,” Ken gawked, spinning around in a full circle twice to take the setting in. “That’s insane, there’s no way…”

It was odd to see everything so realistically, but there was no mistaking that this was an exact replication of the scene of Clementine’s backyard from Telltale’s _The Walking Dead_ video game. Your small group was silent as you took in this new revelation, trying to reconcile the idea that any of it was possible in the first place. It was hard to wrap your head around, but it was all _right there_ , so in your face that you half expected Clementine herself to pop her head out of the treehouse and-

_Clementine!_

Realizing the possibility that her existence could prove once and for all if this really was _The Walking Dead_ , you continued to the treehouse from where you had stopped before - sidestepping the toy tea set - and stared up at the structure from the base of the tree it rested in.

It must have been an easier feat for a child, you speculated as you started up the planks of wood attached to the tree that served as a ladder part of the way up. Attempting to haul yourself higher and higher felt much more difficult than it had any right to, and you took some solace in the excuse that your sore ankle had to be contributing to the difficulty. After some crafty shimming along one of the branches to more easily bridge the gap to the boards that served as the base to the small hut, you felt triumphant when you reached the top. You swiftly tapped your knuckles against the door in a gentle fashion so that it wouldn’t come off as aggressive or intimidating.

There was no response, so after waiting a few extra seconds you took the initiative to push the door open yourself. Empty.

Clambering back down the ladder, you relayed to the boys waiting for you that there was nobody hiding out up there. Maybe the whole thing really was just a surreal coincidence after all.

Cry chewed his bottom lip for a moment before speaking up. “Maybe Lee already came through here.”

Ah. You supposed there was that possibility. If Lee was in the game (assuming that’s what was going on) and had already been to Clementine’s house, there was no way of knowing where the game was at in the storyline. Judging by the state of the deceased police officer earlier, it wouldn’t be super far into the game, but if he had already come and gone through Clementine’s place, then that complicated things for you and your group.

“Let’s check the house,” Ken suggested. “We can see if it really is _The Walking Dead_ , and if not, well, we can still check for supplies I guess.”

Seeing the logic behind the proposal, none of you raised any objections and made your way over to the house together. Felix pushed his face up against the glass door but quickly jerked back, face pale and holding a disgusted expression. Looking behind him into the house you could immediately see why.

There on the floor right inside was a zombie with its head brutally smashed in, blood splatters spilling out in all directions from the source.

A promising sign of the likelihood of Lee at least. The man really did do a lot of damage to the zombies he crossed paths with; first the cop’s head mostly blown off, then this corpse barely recognizable as a person from the neck up.

“Lee had to have been here,” Felix stated. “Ugh, it’s so much worse in person.” The tall man almost looked ready to gag just by staring at the pulverized zombie for too long and you didn’t blame him, it was pretty gruesome. You were sure it would smell awful once you got inside too.

With an affirming nod from the rest of you, Felix reluctantly pulled the sliding door to allow access to the interior of the house. You carefully stepped over the body after Felix when entering the house and found that your assumption about the smell was correct. You wrinkled your nose and tried not to breathe too deeply while in the immediate vicinity of the rancid odour.

Partially to put distance between yourself and the dead zombie and partially to explore, you moved farther into the house, letting your eyes leisurely drink in the walls around you. It definitely looked like there had been a scuffle if the state of disarray of the place said anything, but that wasn’t too surprising given the state of the world at the moment.

The TV had a blue screen displayed and apart from the blood splatters on the couch and floor the area was bare. You moved to a side table that supported an answering machine and a photo frame of… a family that had a little girl that looked an awful lot like Clementine. _Holy shit, it was real, this was actually happening._

You were about to bring this piece of evidence to attention when you felt heat behind you, like someone was standing very close to you - too close. You twisted on the spot to see Cry standing there, but he didn’t react to your movement, at least, not in the way you’d expect someone to. Instead of stepping out of your personal space, his eyes fixed onto yours and you could almost have sworn that there was a faint glow shining behind them, but it must have been a trick of the light. And something about the mask seemed… _off_. You couldn’t put your figure on it, but somehow it felt like the neutral expression on it was more ominous than it generally was. His mouth was drawn into a hard straight line, not all that different from the one that was on his signature mask.

His gaze dismissed you and flickered away from your own as he focused on something behind you before shifting even closer to your form as his arm reached out. You tensed, unsure of what he was doing and then a mechanical “beep” caused you to jump marginally. It was followed by a monotone voice stating “You have three missed messages” and suddenly you knew what the masked man had done.

But why?

Everybody was frozen as the messages played, no sound interrupting Clementine’s mother as her voice became more and more frantic and teary as the different recordings progressed, until finally the last one ended with her sobbing.

“We love you… We love y-”

Still nobody moved. You were scrutinizing the man in front of you intensely, watching his expression carefully and trying to understand what you were seeing unfold. 

“End of messages,” the lifeless robotic voice stated with an air of finality before another mechanical “beep” signaled the end of the recordings.

It was then that Cry’s expression finally shifted, his eyebrows furrowing together and his mouth dropping open the slightest bit in what appeared to be surprise. You looked into his eyes again and when his irises met yours, they seemed dull and confused. The mood around you was also darkened considerably by a quiet sadness and the confirmation of this being _The Walking Dead_ hanging heavy in the air. Cry then seemed to recognize how close he was standing to you and retracted his hand from the answering machine and took a step back hastily, scratching the back of his head and ruffling up his hair in the process.

“Why?” The word slipped out of your mouth before you fully decided to ask it, but you stuck with it. “Why would you play those? The picture could have proven Clementine was real.”

Cry glanced around at the others before settling on you again, “I- I don’t know what came over me, I was just looking around and then…” Confusion dominated his features (those that you could see anyway) as he trailed off, and your curiosity at the scenario was piqued. “I don’t know,” Cry seemed to deflate right in front of you, looking more tired than he had just moments before. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay man, just d-” Felix took a step towards Cry from where he was standing in the kitchen and his foot lost any friction with the tiled floor due to the large puddle of not quite dry blood smeared there, causing the Swede’s body to slam down hard on the floor. “Ow!” His shout was half surprise and half pain, followed by some presumably Swedish cursing.

Ken burst out laughing right away at the expense of his friend, successfully lifting some of the weight that had settled over the room from the mood drop. You also couldn’t resist chuckling at the King of YouTube in his predicament, but when you glanced back at Cry to check on him again you saw that he wasn’t even paying attention. He seemed distant, as though lost in thought. You decided to leave him be.

Once Felix got back to his feet - grumbling the whole way, which just made it funnier - it was unanimously decided to head back outside. The depressing atmosphere and the gross smell combined made for an unpleasant environment all around. The outdoor air was refreshing and you took in a few deep breaths to cleanse your lungs.

“Well, at least we know we are in the game now,” Ken said, “and I also grabbed this map from inside, so that might be helpful for deciding what to do next.”

“Macon,” you blurted out, struck by the idea.

“What?” Pewds turned to you and asked, “Shouldn’t we try to find Lee and Clem first?”

“ _If_ we even decide to follow the video game storyline,” Ken added.

You almost backed down out of shyness, but steeled your resolve to voice your opinion and spoke up. “I think we should - follow the video game, that is. We know the storyline, so that should give us some warning to what’s going to happen and help keep us alive,” you reasoned. “And as for finding Lee and Clem: we’re already behind them, so we should be trying to meet them somewhere in their path rather than just following along after them and hoping we catch up. They stay in Macon for a little bit, so I think we have an okay chance at meeting them if we head there straight from here. Besides, I wouldn’t know where the farm that they meet Kenny and his family is at anyway.”

Cry finally contributed to the discussion again, drawn out of his internal thoughts warring through his head. “I’m with (Y/n), I think Macon’s the best shot. How far is it on the map?”

“Maybe around 70 miles?” Ken guessed, examining the map. Felix looked confused, the imperial system remaining almost exclusively to the States, so Ken translated, “A bit less than an hour and a half by car. Assuming that we can find a car and that the roads aren’t blocked by anything.”

“I am _not_ walking!” Felix groused right away upon hearing this. “We are driving.” He stared the rest of you down as if waiting for one of you to challenge him. You held your hands up in compliance, also not too keen on the prospect of walking that distance.

“Well…” Ken folded the map and stuffed it into his back pocket. “If we’re going to drive there, we better find ourselves a car.”


	8. [Eight]

The four of you split up to check the cars littering the street out in front of the house, and even those parked in nearby driveways, looking for vehicles that would still have their keys abandoned with the vehicle itself in the panicked state that they were left in. Gas wouldn’t be too much of a problem with enough cars around that you could likely easily siphon enough from others to partially fill up a gas tank. 

It was, however, taking longer than you would have liked. In reality, it hadn’t been an excessive amount of time providing fruitless results, but you were very aware of the slowing sinking sun and it was making you antsy to get on the road towards Macon. A frustrated sigh escaped you as another van turned out to have the keys nowhere that you could discern.

The others were looking as disheartened after each failure as you did, but you all continued to push on, not having many other options. As Felix had adamantly declared earlier, there was no way you were walking there.

The spluttering of a tired engine coming to life had never sounded so good to you before than when it reached your ears right after another car proved to be a dud. You whipped your head around to the source of the beautiful sound and caught the surprised expression splashed across Felix’s features before the wide and cocky grin took over.

“I found the working truck, I get to drive!” he shouted out the open driver’s door in glee. You had no complaints and started over to the running vehicle.

“Oh God, I think I’ll take my chances walking,” Ken snorted with an eye roll, but also came over to the truck nonetheless.

Pewds glared at Ken, but his intended effect was mostly ruined by the smile that was still prominent on his face. “Shut up or I’ll make you ride in the back.”

Taking a closer look at the truck, you recognized that it must have been an older model and that it also didn’t actually have back seats, just three up front (driver seat, passenger seat, and that one awkward middle seat squished in between) and the truck bed. You went to the back of the truck and climbed in, the movement causing the boys to pause in their bickering and turn to you.

“(Y/n), what are you doing?” Felix asked, leaning out of his open door to speak to you more clearly. “You don’t have to sit back there, I can kick Cry or Ken back there and you can be inside the truck.”

“Yeah, I don’t mind. Honestly, you’d be saving me from listening to that loser the whole trip,” Ken agreed, smirking at his jab fitting into it.

You smiled kindly at them, actually quite touched by their offers and genuine concern towards your well-being in such a simple area. “Oh thank you, but it’s alright. I kind of want some fresh air and a little more space than the truck has,” you explained, taking your backpack off and setting it beside you.

Cry regarded you for a moment, contemplating something, then quickly jogged back to Clementine’s house. You shot a puzzled look to Ken and Felix only to receive the same look of confusion at their friend’s action. Interesting. You wondered what the masked man was up to.

Your question was answered moments later when he re-emerged from the house with a blanket draped over his shoulder. He hopped into the back with you, tossing the blanket in your direction, and slapped the side of the truck with his palm. “Let’s get the show on the road!”

Ken only looked between the two of you for a couple of seconds before shrugging and jumping into the passenger seat, and soon then the truck jolted forward as your little team set off. The sudden lurching movement caused you to pitch forward as well and the only thing that kept you from toppling over was Cry’s arm shooting out to steady you. You adjusted back to your original position and allowed Cry to throw the blanket over the both of you.

“Thanks for yet another save,” you said sheepishly. “And nice reflexes.”

“Anytime. Besides, I was kind of expecting it.” He smiled at you conspiratorially, as though he was about to let you in on a secret. You leaned forward curiously and he explained matter-of-factly, “It’s Felix driving.”

You blinked a few times while you processed what Cry had just said then you burst out in a fit of giggles at his playful insult. He perked up at your mirth and joined in with his own chuckling. When the gentle laughter died out the two of you lapsed into a surprisingly comfortable silence. You took to watching the horizon and trying to guess the time based off of how low the sun was sinking; you’d hazard a guess that you were quickly approaching late evening.

As if to confirm that it was a time normally reserved for a standard meal, your stomach rumbled with hunger and you came to the realization that you had really only had more of a snack than a real lunch. You pulled your backpack to you from where you had set it aside and reached inside to pull out some food. You and Cry had packed minimal perishable items, but couldn’t resist a couple of apples, seeing how they had a little bit before they were going to go rotten yet. That meant that they were the first of the food to be eaten to ensure that they wouldn’t go to waste. You grabbed one of them, a can of diced peaches, and a protein bar to set on your lap. 

Twisting around, you knocked on the rear window and waited for Ken to slide it open. When he did, you shoved your backpack through the space and explained that he could take his choice of food from the pack for dinner on the road. He thanked you then closed the window again, and you settled in for your meal.

During that whole exchange, Cry had taken your lead and also pulled out a ragtag meal of his own to join you for supper. While you ate, Cry took the time to ask you some questions about your life before you had woken up in the game, and you answered them along with sprinkling in some anecdotes. You were delighted when Cry laughed along and shared some experiences you hadn’t heard about in his videos or streams. It was a refreshing reminder that he was just another person; admittedly someone you thought to be really funny and cool and who you did look up to in many ways, but very much human and approachable as well.

The food had long disappeared by the time Cry asked a sobering question to the circumstances you all found yourselves in. “Do you think this is going to be exactly like the game?”

You gave the question some thought, pondering over it. “I don’t know… Maybe, but if we’re here that might change things. I know there’s a lot of parts of the game that are going to be hard if we have to deal with them, but I wonder if that’s still easier than not knowing, you know? Like, if we stay on track with how the game is supposed to play out, we’ll be safer in a way because we know what’s coming and what to expect.”

Cry hummed in a noncommittal way, allowing your words and reasoning to sink in. He rubbed a hand over his face underneath the mask, air escaping from behind his teeth in a harsh huff. “The game goes to shit,” he mumbled, a hint of exhaustion at that prospect creeping into his tone. “How are we supposed to make it through everything without dying?”

It was a rhetorical question, you knew, but it was a very valid one as well. He was right; the game got messy and chaotic, and while knowing the storyline may have given you an advantage, it wouldn’t guarantee anyone’s safety. It was daunting to think about. Then again, you weren’t sure if there were any good options to choose from in the first place.

“And what if it is too hard?” Cry continued. “If we die, do we get to respawn and try again like Lee? Or is that it? One chance and if we fuck it up, that’s the end of it?”

You had bypassed that concept whenever you thought about the hardships you were sure to face, and having it asked so overtly was like a slap to the face. If you had been standing you were certain you would have stumbled back a step at the weight that question held behind it.

Your distress must have shown on your face, because Cry quickly backpedaled. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that. Just- forget about it for now, okay (Y/n)? We don’t need to be worrying about stuff like that. Like you said, knowing what’s coming will give us a better chance at surviving this anyway.”

You nodded, but your mind was still reeling. It was a difficult thing to take back once it had been spoken aloud, and now you were stuck with it wriggling around in the back of your mind. Putting on a brave face, you mustered up what you hoped came across as an easy smile as you responded, “We just won’t die, yeah?”

Cry considered your words and inspected your expression closely, in the end settling on a firm nod as his answer. Then he shifted to be more comfortable and reached across himself to gently guide your head to his shoulder. “Here, you’ve had a long day,” he spoke in a soft voice that you could only just make out over the wind, “rest for a bit.”

Maybe you should have felt a trace of awkwardness over it all, but you were tired and the blanket thrown over you was cozy and the heat Cry offered only added to that welcoming and pleasant feeling of security and warmth, so you burrowed in deeper and allowed yourself to doze off slowly. The fading rays of sunlight danced across your face and the last thing your drowsy mind took in before it succumbed to some must needed rest was the deep voice of the man beside you.

“Sleep well, (Y/n).”

* * *

You were jostled awake when the truck went over a bump, and for a moment you were completely discombobulated. You were pretty comfortable and warm, but your cheeks and the tip of your nose felt cold and your butt was on its way to being numb. When your headrest moved, everything clicked back into place and you remembered where you were and who you were with.

Rubbing any sleep from your eyes, you sat up and straightened your spine, eliciting a few satisfying cracks. The sky was still light enough to be able to see fairly clearly but the sun had disappeared behind trees or houses along the horizon. You turned back to Cry.

“How long was I out?” He responded with a shrug but you couldn’t fault him; the usual conventional ways of keeping time were gone. “Thanks for letting me use you as a pillow,” you chuckled with the words in an attempt to make yourself feel a little less awkward about them.

He smiled in acknowledgement of your gratitude, then moved on. “You missed all the excitement; Pewds swerving to avoid zombies, cars blocking the path and him doubling back or taking us off road to get around them… Actually, I’m surprised you didn’t wake up earlier with the way he was driving. You must have been pretty tuckered out.”

The sliding rear window of the truck opened and Felix’s voice floated out from the interior of the truck. “We think we’re just about there, but we’re running a bit low on gas so the plan is to get into Macon but park somewhere near the edge of the town then walk the rest of the way in,” he informed you.

“Got it, sounds good.”

As predicted, the worn out sign that welcomed you to Macon passed by not too long after, and within ten minutes the truck was parked and your group was on foot preparing to head into the town. With the sky getting steadily darker now that the sun was gone, you could tell that everyone was feeling more uneasy; the world felt particularly dangerous when dark.

Nonetheless, it felt good to stretch your legs after having been sitting on the uncomfortable floor of the truck bed for over an hour. Setting off to head deeper into the town, everyone had their weapons drawn and were on high alert for every piece of trash that shifted in the light breeze. Ken had donned your backpack and you had half a mind to argue that you were okay to carry it, but in the end you decided that giving your shoulders a break wasn’t a bad idea and you left it be.

In unspoken agreement, the four of you moved in a formation that kept your backs to each other with someone keeping an eye out in every direction. It felt safer that way. Ken ended up leading the way because he was the one in possession of the map and had the best general idea of where to go to get to Lee’s parents’ drug store. You were at the rear, walking in a kind of backwards shuffle as you kept an eye out for any zombies trying to sneak up behind the group.

“I can see the store!” Felix eventually broke the quiet of the journey, a bit too loud for anyone’s taste, causing the three of you to quickly shush him.

You looked over your shoulder to spot the building as well, making the mistake of not watching where you were going. Your foot connected with an empty soda can that had been discarded carelessly on the street and you cringed at how loud the skittering of the empty aluminum cylinder sounded in comparison to the otherwise silent street. The group froze, waiting with bated breath to see if anything would happen.

“Shit,” you murmured when a solitary emaciated form emerged from a destroyed retail store, undoubtedly to investigate the noise it had just heard.

Once it saw a potential fresh meal, it shuffled towards you at an increased speed and its inhuman gurgling grew excited. Annoyed that you had made such a stupid mistake, you broke formation to deal with the zombie before it stirred up any more threats in the area. You silenced the frail corpse of what had once been a woman with a forceful swing of your crowbar. You were lucky you had only brought one zombie out of hiding.

The others were hissing your name in an attempt to stay quiet while calling you to come back and you went to pull your crowbar away and turn to them, but found that your crowbar had gotten snagged on some part of the dead woman’s broken skull. You tugged again with the same effect, so you changed tactics and yanked from a different angle in order to free your weapon.

Just as it became dislodged, you heard Cry shout your name and you spun around to scold him about his volume only to meet a rotted face right in front of you. Its jaw practically unhinged as it went for a bite and you screamed as you brought up your crowbar. You didn’t have time to wield it in a way to kill the zombie, but you did manage to use it as a sort of barrier to hold it off of you to hinder its teeth from reaching you. The decaying man was persistent though and you were trapped, unable to freely use your weapon and save yourself. 

As your arms started to shake from strain, the body suddenly went limp and you watched Cry pull his hatchet out of its head with a gross squelch. He helped you push the twice dead corpse off yourself then quickly did a once over of your figure. “You okay?” he asked.

You opted to nod, not trusting your voice after that close call. You had been so focused on fixing your mistake of alerting _one_ zombie that you hadn’t fully considered your surroundings to notice other zombies had taken notice as well. While you had gone off to take care of the first one, the rest of your group had been stranded in a tough spot of wanting to move quickly and get out of the danger while also not wanting to leave you alone in the middle of the shitstorm. Luckily for you, Cry had decided to play the hero and come to your rescue.

You definitely owed him. Big time.

“Cry! (Y/n)!” You could hear Felix’s accented voice call out to you above the growing cascade of zombie growls, and you spotted him and Ken starting to head in your direction. 

You could also see that more and more zombies were pouring onto the streets, intrigued by all the noise that was happening. If Felix and Ken made it over to you, their window for getting to the drug store would be closed and you’d all be screwed. As it was, the path to the store was still relatively clear so they could still have a chance.

You did your best to wave them off while holding your weapon in a defensive manner. “No! Just- just get inside!”

Not sparing them a second glance to see if they were following your orders, you redirected your focus to the trouble you and Cry were facing. If you didn’t move you would soon be overrun. Learning from your previous mistake, you were more efficient in retracting your crowbar from the skull of the next zombie you embedded it in.

“There’s too many of them!” Cry grunted as he took down another zombie that got too close. 

He was right. It wasn’t looking good. “What do we do?” you asked him, pitch more shrill due to the panic that was coursing through your body. That last zombie had gotten uncomfortably close to catching your arm with its teeth.

Cry grabbed your elbow firmly and started to drag you over to an adjacent building. “We hold out,” he puffed, slamming his body into a zombie to throw it off balance away from your route.

He pushed into a building and slammed the door shut after you were through as well, then turned the deadbolt. Not waiting to see if it would hold the zombies out (you doubted it would against so many), Cry kept going, running up the stairs that were in the main hallway. You didn’t have much time to properly take in the environment, but your guess would be that it was some sort of small apartment complex with the layout it had.

“Check the doors,” Cry instructed as he bolted off to the far side of the hall to do the same. The apartments on the second floor were all locked, so the two of you rushed up the next flight of stairs. You could hear a splintering from downstairs and redoubled your efforts, knowing you were running out of time to hide yourselves. Finally there was a stroke of luck - someone must have fled their room in a hurry and neglected to lock their door - and Cry called your name as quietly as he could to get your attention to where he had found an unlocked apartment.

The door closed and locked behind you as silently as possible to not draw any attention to your location, then you and Cry hurried to push whatever you could find up against the entrance to barricade it further. The two of you stood there panting and staring at your handiwork for a moment before turning to each other.

“Well shit,” Cry’s voice was breathless from the exhilaration and activity he had just endured. “That didn’t go as planned.”

You weren’t sure if you wanted to laugh or cry at how much of an understatement that was. Much to your horror, you actually felt prickling in the corners of your eyes as tears formed. You wiped at your eyes furiously, feeling humiliated that you had been the cause of the whole situation and now you had the audacity to cry about it.

Unfortunately for you, Cry caught on. “Hey, hey, it’s okay,” he soothed, moving you over to a small living room area where he lowered you to sit on the couch and started rubbing gentle circles into your upper back. “We’re safe, we’re okay.”

Him still being so nice to you only caused some of the tears to spill over, hot liquid trailing down your cheeks. You felt pathetic and struggled to reign your emotions back in.

“I’m sorry,” you choked out. “This is my fault. I put everyone in danger.” You wiped your nose on your sleeve, not caring if it was gross at the moment. You felt overwhelmed and needed to calm down. You focused on your breathing and the steadying contact of Cry’s hand on your back.

Cry waited until you had yourself more under control before he spoke again, for which you were thankful for. He gave you the space to deal with your emotions without pushing anything else at you.

“It’s okay (Y/n), we made it somewhere safe. And most of the zombies were focused on us, so I’m sure Ken and Felix got away as well.”

You were sure your face was a bit blotchy from your small bout of tears but couldn’t bring yourself to care too much about it. At least the crying had stopped relatively quickly. The embarrassment was lingering though and you were desperate for something to distract you.

“Should we check around the place while we’re stuck in here?” You didn’t wait for an answer, going to search the tiny kitchenette area yourself.

The food selection available reminded you of a classic stereotype of the bachelor lifestyle; lots of potato chips and other unhealthy snack foods, many boxes of cereal, plenty of soda and beer, a stash of microwavable popcorn, and a drawer dedicated to takeaway menus were the highlights of what you found when scavenging around. Feeling like unhealthy snacks were great after emotional turmoil, you scooped up a bunch of the stuff you found in the drawers and returned to the couch to dump them all.

Cry emerged from a different room of the house and raised an eyebrow at your haul, but overall seemed relieved that you appeared to be feeling a bit better now. He plopped himself back down on the sofa and waited for you to do the same.

“Whoever lived here had their mattress just on the floor and no top sheet on their bed. Straight up a single blanket thrown on top and nothing else - not even a pillow. I fear for this person.” Cry scanned your pile of junk food. “And I see their diet was no better,” he deducted.

You laughed. So the stereotype really was fitting in this case. It was starting to make more sense how someone could have been aloof enough to have left their apartment door unlocked, especially with the chaos that must have been ensuing.

“I figured calories don’t count against you in the apocalypse, so thought we could comfort eat some junk food while we try to figure out how to get out of being so irredeemably screwed,” you explained, grabbing a candy bar from the pile.

Cry heartily agreed to your sentiment and joined you in indulging on the snack foods. If you pretended that you weren’t in an unfamiliar apartment and couldn’t hear the groans of the undead occupying the building with you, you almost could have imagined that you and Cry were just a couple of pals hanging out and having a fun night together. If the electricity worked and the television wouldn’t have made noise you would have been happy to play the night away with video games alongside Cry; the previous tenant had more than enough options to choose from.

The shame from inciting the mob of zombies was mostly gone by this point from both you and Cry helping distract your mind from it, but you were feeling the effects of having fought for your life earlier. After stifling your third yawn, Cry decided that the course of action would be to stay in the apartment overnight and reconvene tomorrow to figure things out. His hope was that the zombies would have dispersed some by then and the two of you could think about trying to make it to the drug store.

Fortunately there was a second blanket tucked away in the bedroom closet, which Cry handed to you to use for the night. You had chosen to sleep on the couch with Cry’s declaration that that was likely the cleaner option. But, as tired as you were, you were having difficulties falling asleep. In the beginning it was from your mind needing time to wind down, but at one point you could hear shuffling footsteps just outside the door accompanied by ghastly rattling wheezes.

Thoroughly discomfited by the proximity, it felt like hours dragged by and you remained tense as you waited for the next zombie that wandered by to suddenly try to break in. When you could take it no longer you traipsed over to the room that Cry was occupying and lightly tapped your knuckles against the door. There was no answer. You were about to resign yourself to staying on the couch when the door creaked open the tiniest bit, Cry’s mask almost shining in the dark.

Taking in your nervous shifting and fidgeting, Cry stepped aside to give you just enough space to slip past him and enter the bedroom, which you did without a word. As silly as it was - after all, you were barely any further from the zombies in the hall by moving to the bedroom - you felt more at ease right away and felt extremely grateful towards Cry for him welcoming you without question or much hesitation.

“Thank you,” your voice was barely audible, but you knew Cry heard you. “I could hear them in the hall and I-” 

Cry patiently waited for you to finish your sentence, but you honestly didn’t know if you had the words to. Picking up on your unwillingness to continue, Cry slowly raised his arms in an open gesture. He was offering you a hug, you realized, but ultimately leaving the choice up to you.

Not having to think twice about it, you stepped into the embrace and felt comforted by his arms cautiously encircling you. It took you a few seconds to recognize that he was softly whispering words of reassurance into your hair.

“It’s going to be okay (Y/n), you’re safe here with me. I won’t let them get you.”

You weren’t sure if he could make such a promise in this world, but in that moment you wholly believed him and pulled yourself tighter to his chest, murmuring more thanks to him. The two of you stayed like that for a while longer until you took a minuscule step back and Cry took the cue to release you from his hold. No other words were exchanged between you as you both climbed into the bed and fell asleep; not touching, but close enough to each other to assuage the fear that was looming over you.


	9. [Nine]

The disturbance that roused you from your sleep came from the body next to yours jolting upright suddenly and shaking the whole bed in the process. You also sat up, slightly slower, and blinked blearily to clear the fogginess from your eyes as you waited for some sort of explanation for Cry’s abrupt waking.

“Gunshots,” he stated, voice gruff. Your attention was immediately seized and all sleepiness left your mind. 

You swung yourself out of bed, ready to… well, you weren’t exactly sure what you were going to do, but you were ready. Priming your ears, you scarcely breathed, listening intently for what Cry was talking about.

If more shots hadn’t fired off a couple of seconds later, you still would have been alerted to the fact that there was distant shouting going on, presumably from the same people that were firing off rounds on the street outside. Your eyes met Cry’s and you both instinctively knew this was your chance; this distraction could be used to get into the drug store.

You both lept into action, only needing to allow Cry time to put on his backpack before you were flying out the door of the apartment. The zombies that had been wandering the very same hallway the night before were nowhere in sight, the ruckus outdoors drawing them away. An added bonus for you and Cry not having to expend any extra energy getting rid of them yourselves.

The main door to the building had been destroyed last night when the zombies had pursued you and you shuddered at the thought of how they could have done the same to the second door you had hidden behind if they had known where you had gone. Cry’s quick action had saved you twice in the span of less than half an hour.

Outside, the commotion was easily spotted; all you had to do was follow the gathering horde of zombies as they surrounded the source of the noise. The horde wasn’t massive, not by most movie standards at least, but it was still too much to be able to handle by a small group of people - especially when they were using such loud weapons and attracting more undead to themselves.

“Shit, Phil, hurry up with them guns!” One of the men yelled as he fired more rounds into the unrelenting force that was the reanimated corpses swarming him. Through the shifting bodies between him and you, you could just barely make out his position in front of the store where you would bet the rest of his friends were. 

With the mass of undead concentrated elsewhere, you turned your gaze over to the drug store to see if there was a plausible route to get there unharmed. You could have sworn that the front door was cracked open a couple of inches, but it was impossible to know for sure from this distance. It wouldn’t be surprising that the people holed up inside would want to check out what was happening just outside their hiding spot.

The stranger outside of the ammunition shop let out a harrowing scream and your attention was pulled back over to him in time to watch him devolve into firing his last few bullets wildly while he tried to stop the steady flow of blood outpouring from the bite on his arm. Within seconds he was overwhelmed by the unperturbed zombies surrounding him. You had to swallow down acidic bile and look away as they began gnawing on his flesh while he was still fighting beneath them.

A shout sounded from inside the store. “Fuck, Tony! Those bastards got Tony! Phil, Jordan, hurry it up and round up the rest of the boys, we gotta go!”

These words also kicked you and Cry into action; there was no telling how long or well this distraction would last, so you raced towards the drug store with Cry close on your heels, keeping your ankle in mind so that you wouldn’t bother it with your movements. It felt taboo to look at the very objects you were trying to avoid, so you kept your face forward and didn’t even spare a glance in the direction of the now feasting group of zombies so close to you.

You could have cheered in relief when you reached the storefront with no issues, but contained yourself to the quieter option of releasing the breath you had been holding on the way over. You pulled open the gate of the small metal cage that protected the front doors and watched Cry close it behind himself once he was inside. The space was a bit cramped, but you could still move relatively freely.

Thinking better than just barging in unannounced ( _what a great way to get yourself shot_ , you mused), you fought against your base instincts to _get the fuck away_ from the nearby danger and forced yourself to listen for a moment, past the disgusting wet chewing happening somewhere behind you. You could hear what sounded like raised voices indoors trying to keep the volume to a minimum while having a heated discussion. Not an easy feat.

Then you heard a familiar Swedish accent chime in and you called out, “Felix? Are you in there? It’s me and Cry!”

The words had barely finished leaving your mouth when the door swung open and you and your friend were pulled inside by the Swede. The next thing you knew, two different sets of arms were wrapped around you and Cry, smushing you and the masked man together closer than you otherwise would have found comfortable.

“We thought you were dead, man!” Felix accompanied his statement with an affectionate ruffling of Cry’s hair, an action which earned him a disgruntled glare. 

“How the hell did you survive?” Ken asked from the other side of the tag-team hug.

Cry shrugged (as much as he could in the confined space imposed on him by his friends) and answered simply, “We barricaded ourselves in an apartment for the night and waited for the opportunity to escape.”

Your little reunion was interrupted by an angry looking woman. “I told you not to open the door! You can’t just come in here and start acting like you own the place! You put us all in danger!”

“They’re our friends!” Felix rebutted, stepping back from the hug to defend himself. Ken also released you and Cry. “I wasn’t going to leave them out there!”

An older man glared at you, Cry, then Felix in turn. “You could have let those - those _things_ in! It was a stupid decision that could have cost us all!”

“I’ll have you know that they were distracted, sir.” Cry was bristling, but kept his voice cool in comparison to the raised tone he was up against. You bit down a smile at him tacking on the polite “sir” at the end of his sentence; yet another very Cryaotic move. His glare was as cold as the first day you had met him, back when he thought you were a threat to him.

“Hey, everybody calm down!” you intervened, hands held up to placate the group. “We’re already inside, so there’s no point arguing about it anymore. We didn’t attract any dead when we came in, but if people start shouting at each other then all bets are off.”

That did the trick. It was obvious not everyone was happy about it, but they could also see the logic behind your concern and stuck to grumbling under their breath rather than direct confrontation. The two groups stood separated, yours having banded together automatically for the brief spat. For the first time since you entered the building, you finally took the opportunity to examine the other people.

It was easy to pick out all the recognizable characters from the video game. The angry woman and apparent leader must have been Lilly and the older man was obviously her father, Larry. You vividly remembered him being quite the problematic character in the game and did not look forward to having to deal with him. He always acted so purposefully antagonistic. Standing nearby and looking half ready to butt in herself was who you assumed had to have been Carley, and standing further back was a timid looking man who you recognized as Doug. Then there was a nervous man who was fidgeting with adjusting the baseball cap on his head, who you remembered to be Glenn from both the television show and the game. Finally there was the familiar looking face of a sixth member who was regarding your group with outright fascination.

Before you could fully appreciate that you didn’t recognize him from the game, but from _outside_ the game, his richly timbered voice washed over you. “Well I’ll be damned,” he said, and it was like an electric shock went through you. “I thought I was the only one having this shitty nightmare.”

“Markiplier?!” you gaped, not having expected him in the slightest, let alone here. _What on earth was going on with all these YouTubers being in here?_

His dark irises landed on you and his head tilted somewhat. “Them I know, _you_ on the other hand… You have me at a disadvantage.”

“O-oh! Right, sorry!” God, would you ever get any less flustered in these situations? “I’m (Y/n). I watch-”

“You know them?” Larry demanded, cutting you off. He had fixed his permanent glare on Mark and spoke with suspicion colouring his words.

Mark rolled his eyes and you wondered how long he had been dealing with Larry’s attitude and how he had managed to keep his temper with the aggravating man. He was definitely brooding and the main source of hostile tension that still hung thick in the air.

“Yeah, we…” he paused, searching for the correct wording before finishing, “we knew each other before this all went down; worked together sometimes. Except, of course, (Y/n), but if these guys say she’s cool then I’ll vouch for her too.” Mark winked at you.

Rather than give Larry the chance to complain again, Glenn quickly stepped forward and offered out his hand to Cry, who was the closest member of your group to him. ”Hey, nice to meet you guys. I’m Glenn.”

The rest of his group followed his lead painlessly, except for Larry, for whom his daughter had to introduce. Even Lilly had mostly dropped her previously biting attitude, though she was obviously still wary and unhappy about how you and Cry had gotten into the store in the first place.

You, Felix, Cry, and Ken also took the liberty to state your names for the other group in introduction. With that out of the way, the game characters split off to meander about. It was an interesting concept to you to be able to sort of see behind-the-scenes, so to speak, for what the other characters got up to before Lee and his group came into the picture. The non-game characters, on the other hand, stayed near the entrance to talk to each other with varying degrees of curiosity and disbelief.

“Man, I forgot how much of a dick that guy is,” Cry almost growled, and you followed his line of sight to Larry.

Mark chuckled and offered no defence to the old man. “Oh yeah, he’s been a real pleasure to be around this whole time. Everyone else has been fine, it’s just him always being so extra about everything.”

“Have you been with them the whole time?” Ken inquired.

“Nah, I actually woke up in some random car. Ran into Glenn not too long after wandering around lost and he filled me in on the situation. You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to wake up and find out this was all some overly detailed and elaborate nightmare, but with you guys here I’m starting to think that may not be the case. Maybe if it was just you guys,” he gestured to Cry, Ken, and Felix, “but (Y/n) here makes me question it. I’ve never met you before, there would be no reason for you to show up in my dream.”

Felix nodded and provided, “Yeah, that’s similar to what happened to us.”

“So this is real then? I’m not dreaming?” Mark’s stare was intense as he searched each of your faces for an answer that none of you could give him. In the end he rubbed a hand over his face and let out a deep sigh. “What do we do now?”

“We wait for Lee to arrive and go from there,” you answered softly, well aware that it wasn’t the most concrete plan. “I don’t know how to keep track of where he and his group would be, but Lee had already been to Clementine’s house by the time we got there, so he should be on his way here sometime soon.”

“Until then, we just, I dunno, chill I guess,” Ken shrugged apathetically. The rest of you had no objections, and Mark suggested talking to some of the game characters to get to know them a bit in the meantime. It went left unsaid that Larry wasn’t a suggested candidate to befriend, but everyone knew without having to be advised.

Feeling a tad awkward, you didn’t want to follow the others right away and talk to people, so you elected to go on your own and inspect around the store a bit. It was in a dishevelled state, but so was the rest of the world so you really couldn’t fault it on that. You were sure drug stores like this one had been a popular target for people to plunder for supplies once they realized something big was going on.

You actually still found some useful supplies in your search, but when you had gone to pick up the energy bars and batteries, you had a moment of recollection that Lee had been the one to pick them up in the video game. _Would it change anything if I took them instead?_ you wondered, an energy bar loosely in hand as you debated internally if there would be potential consequences. 

Deciding against any possibility of you somehow screwing something up (who knew, maybe taking one energy bar would cause the entire game to shift off its axis and get you all killed), you placed the packet of food back where you had found it and moved on. You wound up behind the front counter languidly rifling through the drawers and shelves back there when you came across a small bowl that had a few candies leftover in it. There weren’t any names of sweets that you recognized, but they seemed to be a mix of generic treats like chocolates, toffees, and lollipops. With nothing to lose by snagging them for later, you pocketed what had been left in the bowl and continued perusing.

You found nothing else of interest and decided it was time to attempt to converse with the game characters like the rest of your YouTuber companions had done. Looking around at them though, you saw that most were preoccupied with conversations already, Mark and Ken talking to Glenn while Cry and Felix were in a discussion with Carley. That left you with the option of the sour looking Lilly, or Doug who had tucked himself away by the door to peek between the boarded up windows.

Not wanting to butt in on the others, the choice was easy and you made your way over to the front entrance, clearing your throat when you got closer so that you didn’t startle the quieter man too much. He looked over at you and offered a neutral smile to show that he had no hostility towards you, and you returned the gesture automatically.

“How’s it looking out there?” you asked, jerking your head to motion where he had just been peering out onto the streets.

He stepped back to allow you to look as he said, “See for yourself. The sun’s starting to go down, and I always feel more nervous around those things when it’s dark.”

“I don’t blame you,” you replied, taking his previous spot to confirm his statement of the sun on its way to setting. The zombies had dispersed enough since you and Cry had come in that you could only spot the few left that weren’t finished with eating the unfortunate sod who had been shooting earlier. “Do you mind if I step outside quickly? To get a better look around and some fresh air.”

Doug shifted, uncomfortable at the request, and you understood why when you saw his eyes dart over to Lilly to see if she was paying attention. “I don’t know… You won’t do anything stupid, right?”

“I will not do anything stupid,” you promised, hand over your heart. Doug snorted a bit at your exaggeration of how serious you were making your promise, but must have taken you for your word because he moved to the door to pull it open enough for you to slip out.

“Just be quick about it, okay? We don’t want Lilly or her dad to have another freakout.” You wholly agreed with him and didn’t plan on causing another scene. You thanked Doug as you squeezed through the opening and he snapped it shut behind you.

If your memory served you correctly, Lee and the rest of them had arrived at the store in Macon in the evening during the game, so you had decided it would be a good idea to check outside every evening until they showed up. So long as it wasn’t too dangerous outside, it would be nice to get some fresh air and hopefully you’d get a heads up for when the game was going to progress.

You did a careful once-over of the surrounding area, trying to see as far past buildings and down streets as you could to watch for any movement. You were turning around to go back inside for the night and try again tomorrow evening when you thought you heard a faint rumbling, but as soon as you had spun around to detect the source of the noise, all that met you was silence. You wondered if you had imagined it, or if it had been wishful thinking on your part.

After waiting a bit longer and still not seeing anything, you knocked softly to signal for Doug to let you back inside. It was as you were closing the door behind you that you heard the voice.

“Hey! You over there, you friendly? Truck’s run out of gas and… Fuck!” That was Kenny’s drawl! You knew Doug had heard it too as his wide eyes met with yours.

Ditching being discreet, you rushed forward and called out to the rest of the people in the store, “There are people out there! We need to help them!”

Everyone’s face displayed varying degrees of shock at your announcement, and you could see Lilly’s shifting into more of a warning as she was no doubt going to scold you for your suggestion. She wasn’t a fan of opening the doors to people, but you knew it was vital for this group to get in. Apart from her and her father, the rest of the people inside sprung into action as quickly as they could once they overcame the sudden surprise.

Ignoring Lilly’s orders to stop and stay put, Carley grabbed her gun from her purse and you, Mark, and Glenn followed behind her as she pushed outside to help the newcomers. By the time the gate had been wrenched open, Kenny’s son had already been pinned down by a zombie too large for the small boy to push off. You were too far away to reach him in time with your crowbar, and you knew Carley would shoot the zombie before you would get there anyway, so you focused on making sure the path to the store stayed clear. There was one zombie dragging itself towards the entrance and you watched as Mark took it out with a baseball bat to keep the danger to a minimum. 

You and Glenn ushered Lee’s group inside and the rest of you followed, Glenn taking the time to lock the outer gate with a padlock to keep the zombies at bay. Once everyone was safely inside the store, Mark pushed the door shut with his back up against it to make sure it was secure while he breathed more heavily from the excitement.

You turned to look at Lee and the rest of them, finding it hard to truly believe your eyes even though they were all standing before you, as clear as day. It was surreal to finally be convening with the main characters of the absurd situation you were trapped in. Not only was that odd, but, upon closer inspection you also noticed something else… 

There was an extra person.


	10. [Ten]

Before you could comment on this, Lilly was stomping towards Carley with her finger pointed at her accusingly. “We can’t take risks like this!” she burst, taking the time to spare a heated look in your direction as well, seeing as you were the one that sparked the incident.

Carley returned the steely glare without flinching. “And we can’t just let people die, either.”

 _This all sounds familiar, are these the exact lines from the game?_ you wondered to yourself as Lilly ranted about keeping the door shut and Larry jumped into the argument as well. God, that man was such a dick, of course he would take any opportunity to yell at people.

“We have kids with us,” Lee attempted to reason, his voice jarringly familiar to you even though this was the first time he had spoken.

Larry rounded on him without any hesitation, “I see one little girl…” 

As if on cue from being mentioned, Clementine tugged on Lee’s arm and quietly mumbled about having to pee. The argument continuing around him was distracting Lee and he somewhat harshly brushed the girl off, making your heart break a little when you watched how dejected she appeared as she turned her face downwards after being cowed. Lee was obviously invested in the angry discussion going on, but your focus was on the little girl you had only ever seen through a screen and you ignored the words flying around you.

It was surreal to be so familiar with the young girl when this was the first time you had ever truly set your eyes on her. Obviously she didn’t appear as cartoonish as the style of the game had its characters designed, but there was no mistaking it: this girl was Clementine. It hit you a bit harder to see the main characters as their real versions as opposed to others like Lilly or Doug, because they were the ones you remembered more clearly. They were the ones that you most closely linked with the game itself.

Walking away from the midst of the arguing adults, you casually went over to Clementine and tapped her shoulder in the most non-intrusive way you could to get her attention. She raised her head to look up at you, a mix of timidness and fear on her face.

You smiled in what you hoped she would take as a reassuring way. “I can show you to the bathroom if you’d like. While everyone else is busy being mad at each other.” 

In the background you could hear Larry turning on his own daughter a bit and telling her she should be controlling the group better, to which she defended herself by saying you and the others had run outside before she could have done anything about it. It was astounding how Larry managed to be so downright unpleasant all the time.

Ignoring the drama in light of the frightened girl before you, you offered her your hand, which she accepted shyly. It was probably less intimidating for her to be approached by a stranger when it was young woman as opposed to a man. You led her away from the fighting and towards the washroom at a pace that would be comfortable for her short legs. The argument was at the point where Duck was being accused of having gotten bitten - accuser being none other than Larry, of course - and Lee and Kenny unsurprisingly denied it vehemently. Having drawn the child into it, the volume grew as people got more defensive and angry.

You glanced over your shoulder to check on the state of everyone, seeing Katjaa frantically wiping at the muck covering her boy while Kenny protectively stood in between his family and an advancing Larry. It caught you by surprise when Cry also stepped forward and held up his arm to stop Larry in his tracks. Sure, Larry was an older guy, but he was still over six feet tall and you wouldn’t doubt that he could pack a mean punch.

Larry gave Cry a hard shove, but before he could do anything else, the four other non-game characters (including the newcomer that you had yet to take the time to identify) came to stabilize Cry and silently challenge the older man to try anything. Larry’s face distorted with a flash of both anger and some fear - he was outnumbered, after all - before he directed his harsh tone back at Kenny. You smiled at the loyalty that had just been displayed for Cry and felt a strange warmth well up in your chest at the sight of it.

“Lee?” Clementine called out, bringing your attention back to her. She was jiggling the door handle to the bathroom only to find it locked. Lee answered her call and eyed you warily, probably not trusting you but being preoccupied with supporting Kenny against Larry’s adamance on killing Duck to fully invest himself in helping Clementine at the moment. “There’s someone in there.”

“It’s just locked. Key’s behind the counter. Probably.”

You assured Clementine that you’d fetch the key for her so that she wouldn’t have to wait any longer than necessary to relieve her bladder. With your longer strides, it didn’t take very long for you to retrieve the desired object and return to the antsy girl outside the restroom. As you passed behind the rest of the adults arguing, you tuned in to find out that tensions were extremely high, Larry not letting up on insisting that they would find a bite wound under all the muck Kenny’s son was covered in. The unknown non-game character was pleading anxiously for Larry to just hold off on anything until Duck was at least clean first, so that they could be certain before trying to do anything rash.

Having made it back to Clementine, you stepped forward to unlock the door, struggling a little with how uncooperative it was being before the key finally turned with a click. You were working on getting it out of the keyhole - _why was it being so difficult every step of the way, ugh_ \- when a physical alteration broke out behind you. You twisted around quickly to see what was going on, the commotion distracting you from the bathroom door swinging open until Clementine’s horrified scream brought you back to your space.

A zombie stumbled out of the bathroom, headed directly towards Clementine’s frozen form. A shout of panic escaped you as you jolted into action, quickly darting in front of Clementine so that the zombie couldn't get to her without sparing a second thought to your decision to protect the girl.

The corpse teetered forward too fast in its urgency for living flesh, causing it to fall on top of you and pin you to the floor, the back of your skull smacking against the ground in the process and causing a burst of lights to appear behind closed eyelids. Your mind vaguely acknowledged the strangely muffled background noises of more screaming and shouting and other voices cursing, but you were too preoccupied with trying to hold the zombie’s chomping jaws away from your face to dedicate much mental energy elsewhere. Your vision was wavering a tiny bit from the force your head had met the floor with and _why was this zombie so damn heavy?!_

You were making no leeway in getting the monster off of your body, and your pounding heart was making your vision go spotty with the sheer panic that was overwhelming all of your senses. You redoubled your efforts to shove it off of you, worried that your adrenaline was going to work against you in this situation and actually cause you to pass out, which would not be helpful in the slightest. The dizziness from the blood rushing to your brain was not a reassuring experience and the feeling that your entire body was weightless while your head was spinning was making everything feel so much harder to comprehend.

Suddenly even the somewhat grounding weight of the zombie on your chest disappeared and you feared that you were actually succumbing to unconsciousness with the weightlessness of your body having nothing to counteract it. It took you a couple of excruciatingly slow seconds to understand that the reason there was an absence of heaviness on your chest was because someone had ripped the undead corpse off of you.

You blinked several times at the scene of Cry’s mask swimming somewhere above you as you watched him punch the aggravated corpse in the head repeatedly in his attempts to wrestle it away from you. He was shouting, but it took a few more seconds for the almost underwater quality of sound to start to clear up and allow you to be able to decipher specific words being said. You winced at the cacophony of sound that assaulted you when you were no longer sheltered by the odd muffling that had previously encompassed your ears.

“Ah, shit, get the fuck off of me!” Cry’s voice was panicked, and you rolled onto your side as you struggled to get your bearings and stand up. The masked man had lost his element of surprise and the zombie had focused its attention on him, pinning him up against a nearby wall as it pushed to get a bite of your friend.

Cry was putting up a fight, but you were well aware of how unnaturally _heavy_ the zombie was, and knew that it wasn’t a fight he’d be able to win alone. In your lingering confusion, you realized that the scene was all wrong. It was supposed to be _Clementine_ who was originally attacked, and _Lee_ was supposed to pull it off of her and struggle with it. No matter how quickly you mashed the correct button to get the zombie off of Lee in the game, it didn’t work, and the only thing that saved him was-

A loud shot sounded, making your ears ring, and you whipped your head to the side to see Carley standing there, gun raised. Your eyes followed the line of her shot in time to watch the zombie collapse limply against Cry, who wasted no time in finally pushing the body away from him. He bent over with his hands on his knees as he panted, whether out of exertion or relief you weren’t quite sure.

Once he had recovered enough, he took a couple of steps over to your spot on the ground and offered you a hand. Oh, right, you were still on the floor. You accepted his offered appendage and allowed him to support a decent amount of your weight as he pulled you to your feet. You still felt a little bit dizzy from what had just happened, and shot Cry a grateful look when he kept his hand at your elbow to help steady you.

He opened his mouth to say something to you when Carley’s voice interrupted him. “You two okay?”

Looking over at her again, you now noticed that Lee and Clementine were beside her, the latter slightly behind her protective pseudo-parent and holding on to the end of Lee’s shirt with a clenched fist, fear evident on her face. Lee’s face also conveyed concern, and he was scrutinizing you closely as if trying to make sense of something. You turned your focus back to Carley, who was still waiting for a response.

Cry waited until you nodded your confirmation before he gave her a thumbs-up. Both of you were breathing unsteadily, and you were sure his heart was still beating much too fast like yours, but overall you were fine. You could feel the beginnings of a headache coming on, but that seemed like a minor concern given the circumstances.

The noise outside the drug store reached your ears and it was louder than what would be considered comfortable, especially when it was obvious that the noises were the zombies outside trying to claw their way in somehow. Everyone was frozen in horror as you all anxiously watched the boarded up windows and door to see if they would hold against the assault they were up against. The tension in the air was so thick it was stifling and you could practically taste it. You held your breath as you silently sent out a fervent prayer to anything that may have been listening to your plight.

Out of nowhere, quick successions of gunshots sounded from somewhere outside in the distance. Everybody looked at each other with wide eyes at the stroke of luck.

“Is that the military?” Lee asked the room at large.

Lilly shook her head as she answered, “I don’t know.”

“Thank God for whatever it is,” Glenn said as the intrusive noises of the zombies pushing against the building began to subside. The other gunshots had been enough of a commotion to attract their attention away from the drug store.

Larry, always quick to start a fight, picked up right where they had left off before the zombie had burst out of the bathroom and demanded immediate attention from the entire group. “We almost _died_ because of this bitch and her itchy trigger finger! That was stupid! That was- argh!”

“DAD!” Lilly shouted, running over to her father who had collapsed on the floor with his hand clutched over his heart. His eyes were shut tightly in pain and his scowl remained on his face, but not directed at any one individual for a change.

“Was _he_ the one bitten?” Lee asked with wide eyes at the scene before him. You appreciated the irony of the question being thrown at the old man who had just been accusing Duck of being bitten not ten minutes ago, but Lilly obviously did not share your sentiment.

“Don’t be crazy!” she snapped, “It’s his heart.”

Larry groaned something about pills, to which Katjaa asked if he meant nitroglycerin pills. Realizing that this was how the game had set up the storyline to direct the characters forward with the plot, you didn’t bother focusing on the words too closely. The main gist was that the goal was to somehow find a way into the locked pharmacy portion of the store in order to get the pills Larry needed for his heart.

You watched with distant interest as the characters spread out and Kenny began to bark out orders to the various people around the store. As much as Lilly was not impressed with him taking charge, she didn’t challenge it in the moment. She was too busy worrying about her dad, and everything Kenny had ordered made sense so it would have been pointless to try and contradict any of the demands he had set out.

Your gaze trailed over to Lee and you watched as he picked up and pocketed one of the energy bars you had found earlier, making a smile ghost your face. The warmth at your elbow reminded you that Cry was still by your side, so you turned your attention back to him.

“You saved me again. How many times is that now? I definitely owe you,” you joked as lightheartedly as you could after the scenario the two of you had just survived.

Cry smiled, letting go of your arm now that you seemed more steady on your feet. “I’m not keeping track anymore. Friends have got each other’s backs, right? Don’t sweat it. I’m just glad you’re okay.” Although it was said as a statement, the way Cry’s head tilted at the end of his sentence hinted to you that it was also a question to make sure you were actually fine.

You bobbed your head a fraction as an answer and gave him a smile. “Thanks again though, that thing was stupid heavy, there was no way I was going to be able to push it off.”

“Yeah, it felt weird how difficult it was to push him off,” Cry agreed. You wondered if it was something to do with the zombie’s role in the game that made it different from other generic zombies you had run into previously. “It looks like someone wants to talk to you,” you followed Cry’s gaze over to a shy looking Clementine standing a few feet away, shuffling her feet nervously and shooting you glances every few seconds. “I’ll leave you be. Catch up with you later, have fun!” He gave you a big grin and a friendly clap on the shoulder, then headed off in the direction of Pewds and the rest of them.

With him gone, you knelt down to be more on the young girl’s level and sent her a little wave. “Hey, I’m (Y/n),” you introduced yourself with a small smile.

“I’m Clementine,” she responded cautiously, returning the quick wave and taking a couple of steps closer to you.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Clementine. Did you get to go to the washroom yet? Y’know, after all the craziness was done. Holding it in for too long would not be fun.”

Your concern for her seemed to endear you to her a bit, and she finally returned your tentative smile and rocked back and forth on her feet. “Yeah, I went after we knew we were safe again. I wanted to thank you for saving me from that walker, but you were busy when I came back, so I waited.” Her use of the different term for zombie threw you off for a second, but then you remembered that they never did call them zombies in the game. “It was very brave of you to keep the walker away from me.”

“No problem,” you waved off your heroics, but felt your heart swell at how polite Clem was. “I’m sure if I wasn’t there that L- I mean, that your dad would have saved you.” You winced at your slip up. You probably weren’t supposed to know Lee’s name yet.

Clem shook her head softly, as though this was something she had had to correct multiple times already. “He’s not my dad. His name’s Lee.”

“He seems like a good guy.” Clementine nodded enthusiastically at your assessment and you felt your heart melt even more at her cuteness. Your eyes then drifted over to the other members of Clem’s group in the store, landing on the one that you didn’t recognize to be from the game. “Hey, do you think you could tell me the names of the rest of your group?”

“Yeah, okay,” she agreed readily. She must have warmed up to you a little more, because she didn’t appear to be nearly as timid and fidgety as she had been earlier. “The people that Lee is talking to are Kenny, Katjaa, and Duck. Kenny is the one with the moustache, Katjaa is the girl, and Duck is their son. He likes to talk a lot.”

Her descriptions made you smile. The childish innocence practically radiated off of her in waves. It was impossible not to feel protective of the young girl in front of you, even after such a short period of time.

“Okay, and what about that one? The guy talking to some of my friends?”

She looked at where you were pointing and located who you were talking about. “Oh, that’s Ethan! He’s funny, we met him at Hershel’s farm. He’s been really nice to me and doesn’t always treat me like a little kid like other people do sometimes. Um… do you think you could tell me about your group too?”

You didn’t have time to properly digest Clem’s new information on the non-game character, but decided you could dwell more on that and figure it out later. “Of course,” you told her kindly, then started gesturing to all of the other people in the room and telling her their names. She examined each person closely and nodded thoughtfully after each name was assigned. It was pretty adorable to see her taking it so seriously and you wondered what her initial verdict was for each person from only knowing their name and general appearance.

After you had finished going through everyone, Clementine was only silent for a few contemplative moments before she raised her finger to point at the group of YouTubers that had gathered together. “Why does he wear that mask? Is there something wrong with his face?”

She must have been talking about Cry you realized without even having to follow where her finger was pointing. Something bubbled up in your throat, a fierce protectiveness that you had to bite your tongue at in order to stop yourself from making a snarky remark in response to Clementine’s question. She had asked it innocently, not in a malicious or rude manner, there was no need to snap at her.

Still, you felt the need to defend your friend’s choice to hide his face. “He’s just never wanted to show his face, I don’t know why. It doesn’t really matter though. It’s his choice, and you don’t need to see his face to know that he’s kind, funny, caring, and sweet, and…“ you trailed off, realizing that you were rambling.

“And you _like_ him,” Clementine finished for you, her poorly concealed giggles making you regard her warily.

“Of course I like him, he’s my friend,” you said, not trusting the mischievous glint shining in the girl’s irises.

This time Clementine couldn’t contain the giggles that shook her shoulders, mirth dancing across her face. ”I mean _like_ like him,” she clarified. Before you even had a chance to defend yourself against such _ridiculous_ slander, Clem said, “I gotta go,” and took off to follow Lee through the office door that he had just opened and stepped through.

Shaking your head at the adorable - and yet so devious - small eight-year-old girl, you got back to your feet and absently massaged the knee that had been resting against the tiled floor to get the blood flowing back through it. You self-consciously lightly slapped your cheeks to gauge their warmth. It didn’t feel too hot, so you didn’t think they were super red.

Reassured with that at least, you set over towards the group of YouTubers to properly introduce yourself to Ethan and see if he really was who you suspected he was. With the way him and Mark seemed the most comfortable with each other, you felt fairly confident in your suspicions, but you needed to introduce yourself to him regardless.

“Hey (Y/n)!” Cry greeted, giving you an in to the conversation. “What did Clem want to talk to you about?”

Your cheeks tingled at the question and you would bet that they were dusted lightly with pink, but you willed yourself to keep your cool. Cry didn’t know what Clem had suggested, and he definitely didn’t need to know.

“Just wanted to thank me,” you answered, not quite meeting his eyes. “Then we told each other the names of everyone in our groups. And you...” you addressed Ethan, “Are you Ethan from CrankGameplays?”

He nodded and held out a hand for you to shake. “The one and only. I don’t recognize you though; fellow YouTuber or fan?”

“Ah, I think I’d fall more into the fan category. I’m (Y/n).”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you (Y/n). Y’know, despite all this,” he gestured generally, referring to the zombie game you all found yourselves in the middle of.

“What are you talking about?” Mark butt in, rolling his eyes. “The zombie apocalypse is the best time to meet people!”

“Walkers,” you corrected, which drew attention to you. The curious looks you were subjected to invited you to elaborate. “They call them walkers in the game. Talking to Clementine reminded me that they don’t call them zombies.”

The others took this information in and ultimately it was agreed that you would all refer to the zombies as walkers as well. With that out of the way, they returned to their conversation from before you had joined. Ethan was telling everyone how he had found himself in the game (he had woken up in one of Hershel Greene’s fields), and the shock he experienced when he crossed paths with the familiar characters of Kenny and his family and eventually Lee and Clementine. He had quickly grown attached to Clem ( _a common theme_ , you chuckled to yourself) and decided to stick with them when everyone was kicked off of Hershel’s farm after the death of his son.

Mark was teasing Ethan about something insignificant just to rile up the younger man when a throat was cleared behind you. You turned around to see Lee standing there, doing a quick once-over of the group before keeping his focus on you.

“Excuse me,” he said politely to the group for having interrupted the conversation. “May I speak to, uh…“

“(Y/n),” you offered kindly.

He tipped his head in acknowledgement and thanks. “May I speak to (Y/n) for a second?”

Of course no one in the group had any issue with it, and Ethan even directed a bright smile and wave for Lee, who mustered up a small grin in response to his groupmate. Lee motioned for you to follow him to a different side of the store a little bit away from others so that the conversation would be a bit more private. He led you over to a corner of the store that had some family photos hung up on the wall. Lee stared at them sadly for a moment and you felt like it was intrusive to be witnessing the moment, so you turned your face away from him to provide him some semblance of privacy.

“I wanted to thank you for saving Clementine earlier,” Lee spoke after a couple of seconds, and you turned your face back to him to see his serious expression. “I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t been there with her.”

You smiled and shook your head, placing a comforting hand on his arm. “I’m sure you would have saved her. You got over there pretty quickly.”

“Ah, yeah, about that…” Lee scratched his arm, kind of like a nervous tick, and a guilty look took over his features. “I also wanted to apologize. When I ran over to help Clem, I should have helped you with that walker, but instead I just… You could have died because of me.”

You blinked owlishly in surprise at how disheartened Lee sounded. He was being pretty hard on himself, but you supposed that made sense in a way. He was usually the one to take the brunt of the responsibility in the game.

“It’s fine, really,” you stressed, trying to convey your forgiveness for what he perceived as his blunder against you. “You were just doing what you had to to make sure Clementine was safe, no one can blame you for that. Besides, Cry was there to help me, so no harm done. You’re not alone in saving everyone, okay? It’s not all on you.”

Lee looked surprised at the amount of support you were showing him for barely knowing him, but you saw his shoulders sag in relief at your words. “Yeah, okay. Thanks. It’s good to know you don’t hold anything against me.”

“You seem like an okay guy to me, and if that little girl is a testament to anything, I would bet you’re a good friend to have. And you seem reasonable at least, unlike some individuals I’ve met,” you jerked your head in Larry’s direction, which managed to draw a low chuckle out of Lee at your not-so-subtle jab. 

He opened his mouth to say something else to you when a crackling sounded from the area that Clem was sitting, and both of you turned to identify the source of the noise. Clementine brought her walkie-talkie closer to her face to hear better, and both you and Lee moved towards her to be able to hear what was going on as well.

“Hey there, this is Glenn and uh, I’m kinda in a jam here. Uh, little girl, if you’re there, can you put your daddy on the phone? Or on the talkie, or whatever?”

Oh, that was right; Glenn had gone out to the motor inn area to get gas. You hadn’t noticed him leave earlier, but that was likely because you and the other YouTubers had been distracted with other matters and hadn’t exactly dispersed yourselves among the game characters to be more integrated in the story. You wondered if that was a mistake. Was it better to stay more to the sidelines, or to be right in the midst of everything to possibly have more control? You honestly weren’t sure, but you doubted you’d be able sit back during the entire storyline, so it would probably be best to establish yourself as a dependable and trustworthy person to Lee and the others.

After the walkie-talkie had been given to Lee, Glenn continued, “So… I’m down at that motor inn and, well, I-I’m stuck.”

“Stuck?” Lee asked, eyes flashing to yours briefly.

“Yeah, I, uh, saw a chance to get some supplies for the group and a bunch of the roaming ones got the jump on me. I’m hiding over here, but they won’t leave.”

Glenn’s crackling voice was attracting the attention of others in the room, and people began to gravitate towards where you, Clem, and Lee were stationed. Well, save for Larry and Lilly of course, seeing as Larry wasn't the most mobile at the moment and Lilly wasn't leaving his side.

Kenny stepped forward and raised an eyebrow as he asked, “What’s up?”

“Glenn’s trapped down at the motor inn,” Lee explained, then turned back to the ranged communication device. “Hey Glenn, we’re going to talk it over and send a group to come get you, alright?”

The static-tinged response came almost immediately. “Phew, awesome. I’ll sit tight ‘til then.”

“Sounds good.” Lee lowered the walkie-talkie then spoke to Clem, “I’m going to hold onto this until we get Glenn back, okay? I’ll take good care of it.”

Clementine wasn’t given an opportunity to respond before Kenny was speaking again. “What do you think?” he asked Lee.

“I think Doug’s not great around walkers and you’ve got your family here. I’ll take Carley and her dead-eye along to the motor inn, get Glenn, and get back here as fast as I can,” Lee rhymed off quickly. You had to credit him for his logical thinking on the spot. It was curious to you, however, that he didn’t seem to consider bringing any of the extra bodies that were available to him from the YouTubers and you being in the game as well.

“If that’s what you want to do…” Kenny sounded a bit skeptical of the plan.

“Somebody’s got to,” Lee shrugged, his expression resolute. Carley voiced her willingness to the plan and Lee nodded in approval. “Good, it doesn’t sound too bad there right now.”

“Let me know as soon as you want to head out,” Carley said, “I could use a jog.”

With their predetermined conversation complete, you felt free to speak to Lee about the decisions that had just been discussed. You knew that him and Carley could help Glenn alone, but maybe having someone with prior knowledge of the events could be helpful in making sure everything went smoothly and according to plan. Or, at very least, you could possibly speed up the process.

“Hey, if you need more people, I would be okay to go. If Glenn’s in trouble, you might want to bring more than two people,” you said to Lee, trying to be as casual about it as you could.

Lee looked at you, then at Clementine, then back to you. “I think I would feel better if you were here to keep an eye on Clem while I’m gone. You saved her once, I can trust you to be there for her,” he smiled in a kind way at you, and you felt humbled to have him trust you with something so important to him. “If anything were to happen to her when I wasn’t around to protect her I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself,” he admitted, “so _please_ take care of her while I’m gone.”

Well, it wasn’t like you could really argue with that. You were a bit surprised that he trusted you enough with the young girl, but it did make sense when he explained his reasoning. You supposed it was a good sign in your relationship with Lee at least. Him and Carley would be fine without you tagging along, so you weren’t too bothered by his refusal to add you to his extraction team.

“Yeah, I can do that.” You looked down as Clementine and she smiled sweetly at you, making it impossible to regret not being able to go. 

“Thank you,” Lee said seriously, then cocked his head to the side thoughtfully. “I’ll talk to you later.” 

You watched as he walked away, heading towards your YouTuber friends and starting to talk to them. They were too far away to hear, but you felt your stomach twist uncomfortably. It was guilt, you realized, contracting your guts as you thought about Lee recruiting one of them to go along with him and Carley, and one of them getting hurt from it. It was _you_ that had put the idea in Lee’s head, so it would be on _you_ if he decided to bring someone extra along and it ended up messing things up. You squeezed your eyes shut, your worrying aggravating your headache from having hit your head earlier. 

Clem’s laughter distracted you from the guilt gnawing at your insides and you peered down at her curiously. “What’s so funny, missy?” you asked, bumping her lightly with your hip in a playful nature. You weren't sure if the two of you were friendly enough for that yet, but when she giggled harder from it you took it as a safe bet that she didn't harbour too many doubts or negative feelings about you.

“The boy you like is coming over here,” she beamed up at you, that same mischief from earlier splashed across her face. You looked up to see that Cry was indeed heading over to the two of you.

Urgent to set things straight with the young girl beside you before she accidentally blurted out something embarrassing in front of Cry, you whispered to Clementine so that Cry wouldn’t be able to overhear. “I like him as a _friend_ , that’s all.”

“Sure…” She raised her eyebrows in disbelief, obviously challenging your statement.

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” you grumbled under your breath, but by the way Clementine’s grin widened you knew she had heard you. “Just don’t say anything about that, okay?”

Her eyes were positively sparkling by now. “So you _do_ like him,” she stated victoriously, voice just a little bit too loud for you to be comfortable with and you winced, shooting a quick glance over at Cry closing in on you. You didn’t think he overheard, but he would be able to soon.

 _She’s a little devil_. You gaped at her, simultaneously amused at her antics but also exasperated by them being at your expense. “No! It’s not like that! I only met him a few days ago, it’s just embarrassing to say things like that,” you explained, practically begging her to drop it as Cry was mere seconds away from reaching you and Clementine.

She thankfully didn’t say anything else, but you could tell by the look in her eyes that this wasn’t a topic she was going to drop so easily. You groaned and buried your face in your hands, a weak chuckle managing to escape your throat at the absurdity of the whole situation.

“Hello! Clementine, right?” Cry’s voice brought your face back to the surface. He shot you a questioning look at having seen your reaction to whatever Clem had said, but was quick to turn his focus to the little girl that was the cause of your distress. He held out a hand to her, easy smile across his lips.

She directed one last sly smirk at you before giving Cry an innocent smile and shaking his hand. “Yes.”

“I’m Cry. I like your hat, by the way.”

“Thanks, my dad gave it to me. Is Cry your real name?” Clementine shot back with no hesitation. You laughed at how fast she had asked, knowing that she had probably had the question in mind ever since you had told her the names of everyone in your group.

Cry shook his head. “Nah, it’s just a nickname, but I prefer it over my real name, so I’ve stopped telling people my real name so that they have to use my nickname,” he winked conspiringly at her, as though he was letting Clem in on a great secret. 

She appeared to be enthralled by the fellow schemer to be found in Cry and you shuddered to think of what shenanigans the two of them could get up to if left unsupervised. Somehow you felt like you would end up being their main target. A scary thought indeed.

“Do you think you could let me borrow (Y/n) for a bit Clem?” Cry asked politely. “I want to talk to her real quick.”

“Okay,” she practically sang as she wasted no time in walking away. She shot you a downright vulpine grin over her shoulder at you that you wrinkled your nose at to show that you were not impressed. This only made her giggle as she continued on her way. _That girl_ … 

“Well, she seems to have taken a liking to you,” Cry laughed. Although he may not understand what Clementine was teasing you about, it was apparent that the young girl was comfortable with you. As much as it exasperated you to be the target of her teasing, it did also make you feel warm and fuzzy inside to have Clementine warming up to you so quickly.

“That girl is nothing but trouble, I swear,” you huffed out, but there was no bite behind your words. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Oh, yeah, I just wanted to keep you in the loop and let you know that me, Ethan, and Carley are going to get Glenn at the motor inn with Lee after he’s done checking around outside with Doug,” Cry said, confirming your earlier fears. The guilt began churning in your stomach yet again and your trepidation must have shown on your face because Cry reached out and rested a hand on your shoulder in a comforting way. “Hey, don’t worry, nothing bad will happen.”

“Don’t jinx it,” you warned, but gave in to Cry’s assurance and made your shoulders release some of their tension. “Yeah, I know. Everything should be fine, especially if you guys know what to expect. Just… be careful, okay?” You wanted to hug him before he had to leave, remembering the comfort it had provided you when you had been scared in the apartment the previous night, but you weren’t sure if that action would be appropriate or appreciated. Plus Clementine’s teasing was still fresh in mind, so you refrained from seeking any further physical comfort from the masked man in front of you.

“I will.” He looked about as unsure as you felt, and you wondered what was going through his head. Before either of you had a chance to say or do anything, Cry was distracted. “Oh, there’s Lee, I gotta go. Stay safe, you hear?”

“I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to tell you that,” you jested, smacking his arm playfully as he took off. Once he was out of earshot you whispered to yourself, “Come back safe to me, okay?”

As you watched the small group leave you felt your heart sink in your chest in worry. If anything was different and went wrong because of the two extra bodies tagging along, you knew you'd have nobody to blame but yourself. But there was nothing you could do about it anymore. Besides, Cry and Ethan should be a benefit to the rescue mission, not a disadvantage in any sense. They would be fine…

These attempts at reassuring yourself still didn't help to quell the anxiety squeezing your chest for every moment your friends were gone.


	11. [Eleven]

You honestly had no idea what time frame the excursion Lee, Cry, Ethan, and Carley had gone on was supposed to have. You remembered a decent amount of the important events and decisions from the game, but smaller details were easier to get muddled. Plus, playing the game from Lee’s perspective did also limit you to how he had seen everything unfold. Then you account for jump cuts of the more mundane stuff, unrealistic slow-motion moments for decisions, the awkward pauses while trying to choose dialogue options… The point was: you didn’t know how long it was normal for it to take to retrieve Glenn in the game. And relying on knowledge from the game wasn’t the most accurate source for judgement for this instance.

In the beginning you had played it cool, determined not to give in to the anxiety harboured deep in your chest. It was easy enough in the start, but your nerves made it difficult for you to accurately tell how much time was passing. Once it felt like the mission was taking longer than you remembered in the game, your worries began to grow and made you more and more agitated.

You had been with Mark, Ken, and Felix initially, but as time stretched on it was harder and harder to pay attention. After Felix’s third failed attempt at inciting you to be an active participant in the topic being discussed, you knew it was a lost cause and politely excused yourself from them.

For the past while Clementine had been watching you pace back and forth along one of the aisles in the store as your new outlet for your pent up nerves. You wanted to do _something_ , but you knew that there wasn’t really much that you could do, so you had opted to keep yourself occupied in at least one sense by keeping yourself moving. At first Clementine had been entertained, no doubt ecstatic that you were so unsettled from Cry being gone, but after a few minutes the novelty seemed to have worn off and she was now regarding you with concern.

“(Y/n),” Clementine finally ventured, her voice gentle. “I’m sure they’re okay. Lee is smart, he’ll take good care of them.”

Her reminder that Lee was there made you embarrassed that an eight-year-old was handling the situation better than you were. Lee was also like a parent to her, while Cry and Ethan were just friends to you. Putting it in that perspective made you feel a bit silly about your reaction. At the same time, you held the knowledge that you were responsible for anybody getting hurt because it was your suggestion that had changed things from the original plan in the game.

Still, Clementine had a point. You were likely overreacting. You sighed as you allowed yourself to sink down to the floor with your back against a shelf. Clementine took the opportunity to sit down cross-legged beside you, peering up at you silently.

“You’re right,” you said to her, letting another frustrated puff of air out of your lungs. “I just hate not knowing what’s going on and not being able to _do_ something. It feels like they’ve been gone for longer than they really have, but that’s probably just because I’m all worked up.” You pushed down your fears and pulled up one corner of your mouth for Clementine’s sake. “You’re a smart little girl, you know that? Keeping your cool like this even while everything is pretty scary.”

Clementine beamed at the compliment, then the smile turned softer after a couple of moments. “I am scared,” Clementine admitted, “but there’s a lot of people with me that make it less scary.” You knew she meant Lee mainly, but the way she was looking at you made you wonder if you had already also wormed your way into the girl’s heart the way she had for you. 

She suddenly turned her head more downwards and picked at her shoes a little bit. You tilted your head at her, wondering why she took a turn more towards forlorn compared to the heartfelt sentiment she had just voiced.

“You okay, Clem?” you asked, not sure what to expect.

She started to nod but then seemed to think better of it. She uncrossed her legs and pulled her knees up to her chin, wrapping her thin arms around her shins in a picture of uncertainty. She sucked in a big breath, the air puffing up her cheeks a little bit as she prepared herself to speak. You gave her time, recognizing that she was working up to something, and it was likely something she found difficult to talk about.

“My mom and dad weren’t home when those… _things_ ,” she bobbed her head towards the outside, no doubt referencing the zombies roaming around out there, “started showing up. My babysitter ended up becoming one of them, and I was all alone in my treehouse when Lee found me. He’s been taking care of me since, but it’s still scary, you know?” Her big, round eyes searched yours for confirmation and you nodded softly in answer. She took another breath before continuing. “I’m really scared, but it’s a lot better with friends than being alone. So even if you’re scared for your friends, I think they’ll be okay, because they’re not alone either.”

You stared down at the girl beside you in amazement. You had known about her parents because of your knowledge of the game, but you hadn’t expected her to confide in you about it when she had Lee to be her main protector and confidant. And the fact that she had told you all this in an effort to help quell your uncertainties was so endearing that you couldn’t resist throwing your arm around the young girl’s shoulders and giving her a quick squeeze.

It wasn’t the most profound message, but it was personal to her own fears of being left alone and it did actually make you feel quite a bit better. Lee was resourceful, Glenn was a good teammate to have on your side, and Carley had a gun if anything really went wrong. You hadn’t had a chance to see Ethan in action, but Cry had saved you more than once, so you knew he was capable. The simple reminder that none of them were alone did help you to see that maybe your worries were a bit unfounded.

“Thanks Clem,” you murmured, feeling that speaking any louder would break the atmosphere. “You’re the best, you know that?” That earned another smile from the girl and you pulled back from the side hug so that you wouldn’t overstay your welcome. You shifted and frowned when you felt something digging into you from being pressed against the floor. Digging into your pockets, you pulled out some of the candy you had scavenged from the store earlier. Clem’s gaze immediately latched onto the sweets and you huffed out a laugh, holding the candies out to her. “I forgot I found these earlier. Want some?”

Obviously she wasn’t going to refuse that offer, so the two of you sat together in a much lighter mood as you contentedly shared the sugary treats with each other. And, wouldn’t you know it, without you being so focused on waiting for Lee and the others to return, it felt like only a few short minutes before the door to the alleyway swung open to the rescue team plus Glenn.

Kenny was the nearest to the door and didn’t waste any time before asking Lee, “Everything alright?”

Lee’s voice was more tired than you had heard him yet when he answered, “Yeah. We had some close calls but Glenn is fine, and… Well, yeah… We’re okay.” 

“I’ve got a few cans of gas for your pickup in the trunk of my car,” Glenn piped up, not even raising his head. 

Everyone’s faces from the returned group were so solemn and worn, you were taken aback for a moment. You wracked your brain for the events in that section of the game and finally recalled what was the cause for the sombre mood. Glenn had wanted to rescue a girl, but she had been bitten if your memory served correctly and ended up requesting Carley’s gun so that she could… prevent herself from the fate of becoming one of the living dead.

That definitely explained the atmosphere.

“Good to hear it,” Kenny said in response to Glenn’s news, shaking you out of your thoughts.

“And things back here?” Carley asked as she moved towards her usual spot where she fiddled away with the radio.

“Quiet,” Kenny answered. “Our ‘ _friend_ ’ is still in and out over there. He won’t survive any more stress…”

“The next order of business is getting those pills out of the pharmacy,” Lee stated, determination written across his face and in his shoulders. 

Kenny nodded in agreement then turned back to return to his family. The other game characters took this as a cue and also returned to their usual positions around the store. Lee’s gaze searched out you and Clementine to make sure the little girl was okay before he went to Kenny and his family to talk to them. 

You and Clem got to your feet together, Clementine to return to where she usually sat while you went over to Cry and Ethan. As you approached them you were becoming more and more aware that you weren’t quite sure what your plan was to greet them. You were immensely relieved to see them, but didn’t want to admit how unnecessarily freaked out you had been.

Before you could second-guess yourself too much, you gave a quick hug to Cry when you reached the two YouTubers, then turned to Ethan and paused. You hadn’t had much in the way of interactions with him, so you weren’t sure if you should hug him too or not. He solved this conundrum by chuckling something about him “being a hugging person” and making the first move to hug you. You smiled widely at him for making the situation much less awkward than what it could have been. You could easily understand why Clem had been able to bond well with him already.

“I’m glad you two are safe,” you spoke once you had taken a step back to give them more space. “Everything happened like it did in the game?”

“Pretty much,” Ethan confirmed. “Except maybe it went a bit quicker, because Cry had his hatchet so we didn’t go in weaponless like Lee did originally.” Then he winced. “I had forgotten about the girl though, that was rough. We didn’t stay to get the gun after - Lee did - but we still heard the shot and _knew_ , you know?”

In that sense, you supposed that you were a little bit glad that you hadn’t gone along. That wasn’t a situation you were all too eager to experience firsthand. You wondered if you’d be as ready to do what that poor woman had if you had been in her shoes.

Lee heading outside with Doug caught your attention and you felt your brain itch. Something important was going on, you could feel it. You scrunched your face a bit in concentration, then put the pieces together for what part of the game you were at.

“Uh oh, I think things are going to go to shit soon,” you mumbled to the two men in front of you. They regarded you quizzically, waiting for clarification. “Lee and Doug just went outside, I think we’re almost at the pharmacy part. With the alarms and stuff?” you prompted.

That did the trick to jog their memories. Both of their eyes widened, then the three of you moved in unspoken agreement to go warn the other YouTubers about what was coming soon. Cry was the one to give a rushed explanation of your suspicions to the others, and you saw the recognition go off in their faces at the implications as well.

“So what’s the plan?” Felix asked your huddle of people.

No one spoke up for a couple of seconds, but then Ken cleared his throat and took the lead. “Well, I think we should send a couple of people into the pharmacy area with Lee. I think they only really grab the pills Larry needs, but maybe some of the other drugs could come in handy as well. It wouldn’t hurt to stock up.”

“That makes sense,” Mark supplied. “The two people with backpacks should go so that they’ll have a bag to shove the extra meds into.” Ken was still holding onto your bag, and the other had ended up getting stored on the floor. Ethan shrugged it on and volunteered to help raid the pharmacy.

“There’s not much else to grab in here really, so apart from that I guess we just do our best to make it out of here alive,” Cry said, though he sounded a little uncertain.

There was no more time to plan as Lee and Doug surged back through the front doors and hastily pushed it closed behind them. Doug remained up against the door with panic etched all over his face, while Lee also looked spooked, but mostly conflicted and saddened. Keys jingled in his hands.

 _His brother_ , you remembered. Lee had to kill his zombified younger brother to get the keys. Man, Lee really did go through a lot of shit throughout the game. You felt bad for the guy, but respected the strength of his character and the fact that he remained so _good_ even with the hardships he endured.

“Showtime,” Ethan whispered as he and Ken followed Lee and Lilly into the office in order to get to the pharmacy.

You were prepared for the alarm to go off, but didn’t account for how loud the blaring sirens would be when you experienced them for yourself in person. You reflexively brought your hands up to cover your ears in an attempt to lessen the offending sound.

After a brief moment of shock, everybody was spurred into action by the alarm that was no doubt attracting much unwanted attention from the dead wandering around outside. The game characters began running around and gathering themselves, attempting to get everything together to escape before you all ended up trapped inside. You dashed over to Clementine and pulled her to your side so that she wouldn’t panic and run off or get trampled.

“Duck, c’mon baby, time to go,” Katjaa yelled to her son over the noise.

“I’m gonna get the truck pulled up ‘round back,” Kenny informed everyone as he ran towards the door connecting to the alley. Hopefully the zombies would be concentrated more to the front end of the store so that he would have a somewhat clear path.

“Do it fast,” Lilly demanded tersely. “I’ve got to get my dad out of here.”

“I don’t plan on dilly-dallying,” Kenny snapped back at her, then turned to address his wife. “Honey, take Duck into the office and barricade the living hell out of the door behind me. Glenn, when you hear me honking in the alley, start getting people out of here.”

“You got it.” 

Kenny taking charge in the midst of the panic was a blessing, offering people something to latch onto and focus on. Lee ran over to you and Clementine, nodding his thanks to you for staying with her in the craziness that had broken out. He began giving the sitting girl instructions, his hands resting on her knees as a way to offer her some comfort and ground her to his words.

“Doug, Carley, Lee, and everybody else that can help out, you guys make sure our defences stay up ‘til then,” Kenny continued with his orders. “And Lee, I better take that axe, in case I run into any of them on the way to my truck. Ken, you’re with me as backup.”

Lee tossed Kenny the axe. “Here you go.”

“Guys, that door’s not locked anymore!” Doug warned when an awful screeching of the metal cage in front of the store being pushed open filled the air.

“Shit,” Kenny cursed. “You lot get on it! I’ll get back as fast as I can!”

Doug, Carley, Glenn, and the YouTubers rushed over to the double-doors to throw their weight against them and keep them shut against the cannibalistic horde pushing to get in. You hesitated beside Clem with Lee.

“Stay away from the windows,” Lee warned the young girl before turning to you. “Keep her safe.” Then he ran over to the others without another word and joined in on trying to keep the doors shut.

Katjaa’s next shout could barely be heard over the crescendoing racket. “Glenn, Ethan, we need your help, please hurry!” she called out. The two of them went off to help her with barricading, confident with the number of people still left behind to hold down the entrance.

You stayed with Clementine, the young girl glued to your hip and watching the scene unfold with wide, terrified eyes. Even with the extra bodies of Cry, Mark, and Felix thrown into the scenario, the doors still would momentarily burst open for a second or two before your group could get it back under control.

“Shit!” Carley’s voice rang out, and you watched as a shelf that had been helping barricade a part of the wall toppled over. Carley volunteered to divert her attention to that breach, firing rounds of her gun into the walkers that crossed into the threshold of the store.

You hurried to pull Clem farther away from the area, crouching behind and counter and listening in horror as the snapping of wooden planks boarding up a window signalled another weak point for walkers to get in by. The store was falling apart under the pressure of the bodies pushing up against it.

“Clementine!” Lee called, and Clem didn’t hesitate to break free from you and run to him, even though it meant getting closer to the danger. “Can you look for something to stick in-between the handles? Something real strong, okay?!”

“Okay!” she yelled, fear causing her voice to waver and rise in pitch. Nonetheless, she took off in search of something to help keep the door secured. You pitched in to help her look around the area frantically, but both of you were unable to spot anything within reason that would be useful to the guys fighting to keep the door shut.

“CLEMENTINE! Did you find anything?!”

“Nothing!” Clem wailed, bottom lip quivering at the stressful situation. “Oh wait!” Then she bolted off without any warning, disappearing into the office area. You didn’t even have time to chase after her before she re-emerged with a walking cane in her hand. “I found something!”

 _Lee’s dad’s walking cane!_ The old man had used it to protect the store from shoplifters before, and now it was going to be used to protect the store one last time. Protecting as much as it could given the circumstances at least.

Clementine gave the cane to Lee, who quickly forced it between the handles of the door to serve as reinforcement in keeping the door shut against the increasingly desperate crowd of undead urgently trying to force their way in. He stepped away from the door, leaving Cry, Mark, and Felix to remain guarding it, Doug having moved away to try and contain the area that a window had broken against the horde. You were so caught up in the heat of the moment that you didn’t realize what was about to happen next until it was too late.

“Ahhhhh! Get off, get OFF! LEE!” Doug screamed as walkers grabbed him from behind through the broken barricade at the window.

“SHIT! I’m out! I’m OUT!” Carley also screamed as she struggled to pull her ankle out of the grasp of a dead man on the ground. She was pulling the trigger on her gun, but it only clicked hollowly at her instead of offering her the protection she so direly needed. “LEE! Help! Ammo! In my purse!”

You and Lee stood mirrored from each other, each whipping your head back and forth between the two options before you. Lee made his decision and darted to his left to free Doug from the rotten hands grabbing at him. You also bolted to your left, going for Carley’s purse to retrieve her ammo.

This was it! With Lee not being the only person available, another life could be saved!

You reached into her purse on the counter and closed your hand around the ammo clip she needed then tossed it towards her outstretched hand. You and her watched in horrified fascination when the clip, for lack of better description, _glitched_ in midair then disappeared completely before it could reach her hand. Your mouth dropped open in shock and her eyes mirrored the same confusion as yours for a brief moment before an incoming walker grabbed her by her hair and dragged her to the ground.

Her agonized screeches filled the store and you weren’t able to tear your eyes away before witnessing the first few chunks of flesh being gouged out of her and into the hungry mouths of the undead pulling at her. You stumbled backwards to get away from the gruesome picture, legs almost collapsing beneath you.

It didn’t make any sense. You had gotten there in time! You had tossed her the clip! _What the hell had just happened?!_

“Let’s GO!” Kenny’s shout broke through your internal queries. You twisted in time to see him turn back around from the now open alleyway door and disappear, presumably to the truck he had accomplished in retrieving.

Doug - whom Lee had successfully saved - booked it after him, as well as the other three YouTubers that had been holding the door, but when Clementine tried to follow them, a prone walker grabbed her ankle and tripped her, sending her crashing into the ground. She squealed in fright and your already tear-filled eyes widened in fear. You rushed forward to help her, not wanting to fathom anything happening to the innocent girl. 

Lee beat you to it, viciously stomping on the walker as you pried Clementine out of its clutches. Scooping her up into your arms, you sprinted as fast as your legs would carry you through the door that Larry was holding open now. You paused once out of the store to look back and check if Lee was okay and following you.

“No!” you and Clementine shouted in sync as you saw Larry punch Lee square in the face, knocking him over.

You lowered Clem to her feet and whispered rushed instructions to her. “Run for the truck and don’t stop until you get there, okay? I’ll get Lee. Go!” Clem took off and you turned back to the store to fulfill your word, but didn’t even make it two full steps back towards the building before the antagonistic old man blocking the doorway stopped you.

“Like hell you will,” Larry growled then roughly grabbed your upper arm and dragged you towards the truck after him, not deterred from your fighting against his hold. No matter how much you tried to dig your heels into the ground and pry his hand off of you, you couldn’t get enough purchase to make a difference.

“Where’s Lee?” Kenny demanded when you reached the truck, suspiciously eyeing the harsh grip Larry had on you. It probably looked even sketchier by the fact that you were openly struggling against the man.

“It’s too late for-”

You cut Larry off, “Still in the store! We have to save him!” You must have looked fairly crazed by this point, but Kenny took you for your word and rushed off before Larry could try anything to stop him.

Larry turned his glare at you, and the amount of seething hatred you saw simmering underneath his expression made you seriously wonder if he was legitimately considering punching you in the face just like he had done to Lee. You had a sneaking suspicion that you would be much more susceptible to damage than Lee was, especially when considering the size difference.

“(Y/n)!” a familiar voice called out to you, interrupting Larry’s menacing glower. Cry hopped out from the back of Kenny’s pickup truck and did a quick once-over of your person to look for any injuries. His eyes fell on where Larry’s hand was still tightly wrapped around your upper arm and stayed there for a second. You watched his blue eyes turn icy as he raised them to look Larry in the face. “Let go of her. _Now._ ”

There was no room for defiance in his tone. His voice had taken on a dangerously low rasp and there was a threat promised behind every syllable. Even stubborn Larry must have realized that he had crossed a line he shouldn’t have, because he let go of you with no further argument and skulked away to join his daughter and Doug in Glenn’s car. You rubbed at the sore flesh where he had held you and didn’t need to check under your sweater to know that there was likely already an angry bruise forming there in the shape of Larry’s hand.

Cry didn’t get a chance to ask if you were okay or anything else prior to Kenny and Lee coming running out of the death trap that was the drugstore. He grabbed your hand and quickly led you to the back of the pickup to join the others as the last two people ran up to the waiting vehicles to escape.

“Let’s get out of here!”

Nobody had any objections to that notion. The two packed vehicles ripped out of the alley and sped away from the now walker-infested building, heading just out of town to a hopefully less occupied area. Everyone was too stunned and overwhelmed from recent events to hold any conversation on the drive, and instead just stared blankly off into space and tried to come to terms with what had just happened.


	12. [Twelve]

With everyone being fairly out of it after such a highly stressful escape from the pharmacy, the arrival at the Travelier Motel snuck up on you in no time. The two full vehicles pulled into the parking lot area - avoiding the few walker corpses strewn about - and began to unload the people from the cars. You hopped out last from the back of the truck and surveyed the area.

You could see a total of four immobile dead in the parking lot, and knew that there would be a couple more up on the second floor balcony area where Glenn’s damsel in distress had been holding out before Lee and the others arrived and dealt with her situation. There were a couple of cars and an old, recognizable RV also situated in the lot.

“Alright, let’s get this cleared out as best we can,” Lilly directed, leading her dad over to a wall to rest against. He would probably be sitting this part out under the reasoning that he was still recovering from his weakened heart.

A murmur of halfhearted verbal agreement met Lilly’s suggestion, and you set about dragging the corpses out of the parking lot to start a pile more on the other side of the road. With the six extra bodies from your group that weren’t supposed to be in the game, moving the dead walkers and broken down cars out of the parking lot didn’t take too long. The RV was left where it was parked, seeing as it offered a possible extra living space if needed and had the potential to get up and running again and be useful.

Once it was all done, you watched as people went about to do their own business. Lee wandered out onto the road to have a moment to himself, Glenn was standing by his car with the door open as he listened to updates coming through on the radio, Kenny and Katjaa were standing at the back of their pickup truck, Duck and Clementine were standing at the rear of the RV, Doug was fiddling with a couple of boxes of supplies at a table off to the side, Lilly was standing towards the back of the parking lot and watching everyone, and Larry was leaned up against a post as he glared at Lee. You and your five non-game companions were standing huddled together more at the front end of the RV, trying to figure out where to go from where you were.

“I really just want to sleep and forget today even happened,” Ethan groused, rubbing a hand over his face. “But the motor inn feels so open without the wall set up, it won’t feel safe to go to sleep without some defences in place.”

This sentiment was reciprocated by the rest of you, and you tried to remember if they set up any pseudo-wall before going to bed the first night at the motor inn. You thought you remembered the first episode of the game ending on a cliffhanger, so you doubted you got to see if they set up anything to deter walkers or not. If none of them suggested it, you were sure you or one of the YouTubers would speak up about it.

“It feels weird to just stand around,” Mark said, shifting on his feet. “I’m going to start going through the motel rooms and make sure they’re all clear. Well, the ones that aren’t completely boarded up I guess; they’d probably be more effort than they’re worth at the moment”

Others thought this was a good idea as well and decided to tag along. You watched Mark walk over to Lilly to inform her of what they wanted to do. She nodded her approval of this plan, and Mark returned to the group to gather those that wanted to help out. All of them were game and they started to go over to the main office area to find all the keys for the rooms when Cry noticed you weren’t following and paused to check in on you.

“(Y/n), you coming?” He tilted his head at you, the long curl sticking out of the top of his mask swaying with the motion. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah, I’m alright,” you assured him, not wanting to cause any extra worry. “I just want to talk to a few people first. I’ll catch up with you guys.” 

He stared at you for a few more seconds and seemed to find whatever he was looking for, nodded, and jogged off to catch up with the others. You turned and looked at the rest of the people scattered around the parking lot. You felt compelled to speak to them, especially because you felt like you had so far remained rather seclusive towards most of them, mainly talking to the YouTubers and Clementine. Which wasn’t a bad thing per say, but you felt a twinge of guilt at not making much of an effort to become closer with the others.

You knew Glenn would be leaving soon, so you made him your first target. Even if you hadn’t had much of a chance to talk to him during all the madness, you thought it could be a nice gesture to send him off. He was a cool guy; it was sad he had to leave, but you knew he made an appearance in the television series and was crucial to it, so there was no way you were going to try to stop him from going.

“Hi Glenn,” you greeted, coming up beside him at his car.

He turned his body to face you a bit more, but kept his one ear towards the open door, waiting for the radio to touch on information pertinent to what he wanted to know about. The voice emanating from the radio was listing safety precautions to take at the moment, such as staying indoors and rationing food.

“Hey (Y/n), what’s up?” he asked, and you took it as an indication that you weren’t interrupting anything too important on the radio.

“Just wanted to check in,” you shrugged. “What are you thinking? Sticking around, or do you have people you need to find out there in this mess?”

Glenn peered at you curiously. You weren’t sure if it was because your question wasn’t very subtle, or because you didn’t know Glenn well enough to be asking him the question in the first place. In the end he decided that it wasn’t too intrusive and played along.

“I got people I want to check on, so I think I might head out. What about you?”

“I’m going to take my chances here. My people are already here,” you jerked your head back towards where the YouTubers were trekking between rooms to check them, “so I don’t have much of a reason to hit the road at the moment.”

He nodded in understanding, eyes following the movements of your friends as they went about splitting up to cover more rooms in less time. “That’s fair. Your boyfriend and friends the only ties you have in the area? No family nearby or anything?”

“Boyfriend?” you jolted a bit at the unexpected term being thrown your way. You raised an eyebrow at Glenn, confusion evident in your expression.

“Yeah, you know, Cry?” Glenn prompted, also sporting a confused look, not understanding your stunned reaction.

Your brain short-circuited slightly. It was one thing for an eight-year-old girl to say you liked Cry for the intent of being able to tease you, it was another thing entirely for an adult with no ulterior motives to infer an intimate relationship between you and your friend. An awkward laugh escaped you without your permission, sounding too high pitched to your own ears.

“N-no, uh, Cry’s not my boyfriend or anything like that,” you hastened to clarify, stumbling over your words a bit. “We’re just friends.”

“Really? Glenn examined your face closely to determine whether you were telling the truth or not and you felt some heat rise to your cheeks under his scrutiny. He seemed to realize that he had made a mistaken assumption and a bark of laughter bubbled up from his throat. “Oh man, sorry about that. This whole time I thought he was. That explains why he got all weird earlier.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“Earlier, when he and the others came to help me out here, we got talking a bit on the way back. Just with the way he talked about you, I assumed you two were together. Didn’t really give him a chance to correct me though, but he did get a bit fidgety. Plus,” he added, “the two of you tend to stick around each other a lot, so I just thought something was there, my bad.”

“Well, I, uh…” You weren’t sure what to say to that, so you cleared your throat and moved the topic on to clear the awkwardness you were experiencing. “Anyway, if you’re heading out, I wish you all the best. You seem like a smart guy, keep your head out there, yeah? And good luck finding the people you’re looking for.”

You could see that he knew that you were purposefully avoiding the subject of you and Cry, but he let it slide and smiled at you. “Yeah, I’ll do my best. It was nice to meet you, (Y/n). I hope you guys stay safe as well.”

The voice on the radio started listing new information and Glenn’s attention was piqued back to listening closely. You sent him a small wave as you stepped away from him and headed over towards the next closest people you wanted to talk to; Kenny and Katjaa. Katjaa saw you approaching first and gently tapped her husband on the shoulder to let him know you were headed their way.

Kenny stopped poking around in the box he had been rummaging around in and turned his body towards you to be able to address you fully. “(Y/n),” he held out his hand and shook yours firmly, a sense of comradery in the motion. “Thanks for telling me about Lee back at the drugstore.”

“We couldn’t just leave him. Thanks for listening and going back to help him.” You knew that Kenny would have gone back for Lee even if you hadn’t been there, so you didn’t feel like much of a thanks was needed.

“You’re a good woman, (Y/n),” Kenny said with a nod. “Loyal. I think you’ll be good for this group.”

You weren’t quite sure how to respond to that, but felt flattered that you seemed to have found favour with Kenny. “Thanks. How are you guys holding up?”

Katjaa was the one to speak up this time, a genuine smile spreading across her face at the interest you showed in their family. “We’re doing okay. That was an awful situation at the pharmacy, but we got out of there safe, and Duck is fine, so there is not much more we could ask for. How are you feeling, (Y/n)?”

You smiled at Katjaa and the caring nature she exuded. “Tired, mostly. But like you said, we got out of there and made it here, so that’s something. I’m glad to hear Duck is handling things alright. You two seem to take really good care of him, especially with the world going to hell around you.” You could tell they both appreciated your words, but your eyes drifted astray and you saw a defeated looking Doug. “I’ll talk to you guys later, okay? Take care.”

You approached Doug more slowly, thinking over what you could possibly say to him. He had survivor’s guilt regarding the choice Lee had made to save him over Carley. It was something that would be hard to rationalize; to make sense of why his life was spared when Carley’s was sacrificed. You might not have said anything to him and given him space to sort out his complicated emotions, but you felt connected to the situation, especially because you had tried and inexplicably failed to help Carley in that deciding moment.

Doug didn’t even acknowledge your presence, but you knew that he was aware that he had company. You didn’t speak right away, giving him a few extra moments of silence to gather himself before having to interact with anyone.

“Probably a stupid question,” you started, talking in a soft volume, “but are you okay?”

Doug managed to snort at that. “That’s an understatement,” he said in reference to the statement of the question being a bit of a redundant one. “I’m _alive_. Still working on the okay part.” You bobbed your head, but didn’t move to speak again, giving Doug the space to elaborate when he felt ready to. Eventually he sighed and continued, “I don’t understand why Lee saved me instead of… her. We both needed help, but he chose me, and I’m trying to make sense of that.” He finally glanced up at you, and all you could see written across his face was pure exhaustion; much of that fatigue, you knew, was emotional.

When you were confident Doug was done with his piece for the moment, you spoke again, “It’s hard to know why, and I can’t speak for Lee, but I can tell you that Carley wasn’t just given up on. I saw Lee go for you, so I went to help Carley but…” You took a deep breath. It was harder to talk about than you had expected, but you pushed on nonetheless, seeing that you had Doug’s complete attention. He had even stopped fiddling with the boxes in front of him. “When I tossed her the clip, it… missed,” you explained. “The walkers had her before I could get over to her and help. I just… I thought you should know that she wasn’t abandoned. The guilt shouldn’t rest on your shoulders.”

Nothing was said between the two of you for the next fifteen or so seconds, and you had started to move away when Doug’s quiet voice reached your ears. You didn’t turn around to face him again, but you did stand still for a few extra seconds before continuing on your way so that he would know that you had heard him.

“It shouldn’t be on yours either. You tried. Thank you, (Y/n).”

Your next stop was at the back of the RV with Clementine and Duck. The latter of the two was happily chatting his companion’s ear off about a television series he used to watch while the former sat on the rear bumper looking rather subdued. She was staring down at her empty hands and not even pretending to entertain Duck’s wild retellings.

“Hey Clem, hey Duck,” you greeted as you came to stand before them.

“Hi (Y/n)!” Duck responded with gusto. “I was just telling Clementine all about this awesome show I used to watch all the time and-”

You knew that Duck would have continued on his spiel for hours if given the chance, so you intercepted before he had the chance. “Oh really? Maybe you could tell me about it later, but right now can I talk to Clementine please?”

You expected the young boy to be put out by being interrupted, but instead he appeared to be ecstatic at the prospect of getting to talk more about the show later, so he bounded off without a frown and left you alone with Clementine. You asked her the cliche question of how she was feeling, but all you got in response was a halfhearted shrug, which caused your lips to pinch together slightly in concern. 

“I also wanted to apologize,” you told her, which made her look up at you for the first time. “Back at the drugstore, when I tried to go back for Lee, I’m sorry I left you alone to run for the truck. That must have been a pretty scary moment.”

“No,” she finally spoke, “it’s not that. It’s… I got grabbed.” 

She was referencing the moment in the drugstore after Kenny had come back and told everyone to get moving to the truck, when that walker had latched onto the young girl’s legs as she was trying to run by. It had been a scary moment for both her and the people who saw it, but you didn’t quite understand why it would still be upsetting her now. It was nothing that was her fault.

The sound of a car door being slammed drew your concentration over to Glenn’s car just as he pulled out of the parking lot, Lee watching him drive away. He had just finished his conversation with him and turned to talk to Kenny next once that red glint of the taillights had travelled a decent distance from the motor inn.

“When I fell my walkie-talkie broke. Glenn had the other one.” She sounded heartbroken as she too watched the car pull away. Her teary voice pulled at your heartstrings, but it was too late for you to really be able to help.

“Oh… I’m sorry Clem. Maybe we can find a way to fix it; Doug is pretty good with tech stuff.”

A spark of hope lit in her eyes and it eased the ache you had in your chest. Lee had made his way over to Doug by now, and you knew he’d want to talk to Clem soon, so you said a quick farewell and ruffled the top of her head affectionately. The only other people you hadn’t talked to - not counting Lee, who was busy - were Lilly and Larry. Maybe if you were braver you might have confronted Larry about the move he had pulled back at the pharmacy, but you had an inkling that that was not a conversation that you would be comfortable going into alone. A little backup would be appreciated. 

Lilly was still standing a little ways apart from everyone else, and you didn’t have anything in particular to talk to her about, but you figured it wouldn’t hurt to try and be on her good side. She could be harsh and cranky, but she usually had good intentions.

“(Y/n),” she said before you could greet her. Her arms were crossed over her chest and you could tell her guard was up.

“Lilly,” you returned, tone less sharp than hers had been. “I just wanted to check in and see how you were doing. Sometimes people can forget that we all have to look out for each other here.”

Her surprise at your intentions for speaking to her flashed on her features for only a second before her controlled expression was back in place. Other than Larry, you knew that many people only saw Lilly as an almost unapproachable person who was often ready to snap at anyone who said the wrong thing to her. You wondered if she felt lonely or ostracized in the group.

“I’m glad we could get my dad’s pills,” she answered. “Things really went to shit, but I’m liking the look of this motel, it’s promising.”

“Yeah, block off the entranceways to the parking lot and it could be a good place to stay,” you agreed. “I’m glad to hear you’re doing okay, I’m going to help out with checking all the rooms.”

The boys had finished the ground floor for rooms, and you could see them ducking into the last few rooms on the second level, so you made your way over to the stairway that would allow you to tag along for the fun. You passed by the RV just as Lee finished talking to Clem. Seeing as you were in between him and Larry, Lee ended up calling out to you before he had the pleasure of being called over to talk to the older man. 

“Hey,” he said casually, but you could hear that he was tired in many different ways. “Kenny told me that it was you that let him know that I was still back in the store earlier. Thanks for that, and for getting Clem out of there.”

“No problem, Lee. How’s your face feeling? I imagine that bastard hits hard. But I’m really glad Kenny was able to go back for you. This group needs you.”

Lee grimaced, hand hovering over his nose before he decided against touching the tender skin. He didn’t need to verbally admit it was sore for you to understand that he was definitely feeling it. “He really knocked me back. He really has something against me, huh?”

“I don’t know if he’s exactly pleasant to anyone, but yeah, he does seem to have it out for you. Hang in there, man. His opinion of you is not a common one.”

Lee was giving you a strange look again, the one he gave you every time you went out of your way to be nice to him or say kind words. You didn’t know why he was so confused about it. You sincerely hoped you weren’t coming off as creepy. The fact that he continued to talk to you and treat you well suggested that that wasn’t the case, but it still made you curious.

“You’re really something (Y/n), you know that?” Lee said fondly. You cocked your head to the side at him in question. “You know just what to say sometimes. Not just to me, but to others too, like Clem and Doug. It’s… nice. It can be hard to keep your spirits high with the tough choices we have to make sometimes and I appreciate your supportive words.”

You blinked wide eyes at Lee, having not expected such high praise. You had an unfair advantage of knowing more than you should of the ins-and-outs of many of the choices Lee was faced with, but it was bolstering to hear that your small encouragements were helping even just a little bit. 

“Of course,” you answered with a true smile spreading on your face. “I’m happy to help.”

Lee nodded to you one last time, then kept on his way, getting called over to talk to Larry. You squeezed his shoulder in a show of non-verbal support before you parted ways and climbed up the metal staircase to rejoin the others. As your luck would have it, you reached the top just as Cry emerged from the room closest to the stairs. You greeted each other in surprise, then Cry glanced over his shoulder to check the progress of the others before he turned back to you again.

“What happened back at the drugstore?” he asked, delving right into business. “With Larry?”

Oh, that. It made sense that Cry would want to know the details behind that; after all, he had been the one to come to your rescue to get the old man to release you.

“You remember how he punched Lee to leave him in the store with the walkers in the game? I was trying to go back and get him and obviously Larry wasn’t going to let that happen, so he stopped me by grabbing me and dragging me back to the truck by force. That’s it, really.” Cry narrowed his eyes at you as he digested your words and you felt yourself getting nervous, which led you to ramble. “I guess I probably could have just left it because we know that Kenny would go back for him anyway, but right there and in that moment I just couldn’t, y’know?”

Cry’s lips were pursed, unimpressed with something that you had revealed. “How’s your arm? Can I see it?”

Ah, so he was worried about how tightly Larry had been holding you. That would explain the anger from when he demanded Larry let you go. He had been able to tell that the grip was hurting you, and Cry was definitely the type to stand up for his friends and people he cared about. You were still impressed that he apparently managed to intimidate Larry enough to actually let you go, although part of that could have been from the fact that there was no real reason for Larry to keep his grip on you anyway.

You pulled your sweater off and checked the bruise on your arm yourself for the first time. It wasn’t fully set in yet, but your skin was already darkening quite nicely to bear witness to the way the large hand had wrapped unyieldingly around your upper arm. The area was sensitive and you whispered a gasp when Cry’s fingers gently brushed over your skin. His eyes met yours, silently asking if it was okay for him to touch your arm. Your nod was barely perceptible but he caught the movement.

His fingertips only just ghosted your skin, and it made the hairs on your arm stand on end. He lifted your arm to confirm how the bruise fully wrapped around your appendage before he finally retracted his hands from your person. Your arm felt oddly tingly, but not in an unpleasant or concerning way.

“That fucking asshole,” Cry growled, and you were shocked by the venom in his voice following such soft contact with the man. His voice lost most of its edge when he asked, “Does it hurt still?”

You shrugged your sweater back on first, then replied, “It’s a bit sore, but nothing too bad. Lee definitely got the worse end of that interaction with Larry.”

Cry didn’t get the opportunity to say anything further because at that moment Felix and Ken stepped out of the next motel room and spotted the two of you. “(Y/n)! You missed all the work, you slacker!” Felix scolded with a grin, no weight behind his words. “Of course you only show up after we’re done checking all the rooms!” As if to accentuate his point, Mark and Ethan then came out of the last room at the end of the balcony.

Shots and screaming suddenly sounded off in the distance, and everybody turned their heads toward that direction. You leaned on the railing of the balcony and looked down to see Lee, Lilly, and Kenny standing a bit onto the road as they searched the darkness in vain for a hint to who was causing all the ruckus. They were all in agreement for once about the motor inn being a good place to fortify and hold out in for a while, and things were almost looking the tiniest bit optimistic.

Then the streetlights in the distance started to flicker out one by one, until only the bright sign of the Travelier Motel was left. It too flickered for a moment before sputtering out, delving you all into the blackness of the night. Even though it wasn’t too cold out yet, you felt a shiver run up your spine and goosebumps broke out over your skin. It was a very ominous scene to witness in person as opposed to through a screen.

“End of episode one,” Cry muttered under his breath from beside you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> end of episode one!! this chapter is pretty dialogue heavy, but i hope it worked out well and that you enjoyed the development between characters!


	13. [Thirteen]

As you and the others had suspected, none of the game characters felt particularly secure at the motor inn without the wall set up either, so it had been priority number one once everything had been cleared out. Those that were able to help (everyone but Larry and the children, the latter of which had been instructed to get some sleep) worked in the dark after the streetlights and motel sign had gone out to get some form of blockade up so that walkers wouldn’t be able to wander in easily. You had been limited on time and energy the first night, only having arrived at the motel at night and being exhausted from the earlier escape from town, and so the barricade didn’t instill much confidence the first night it was hastily put together.

Still, it had done the trick; when you had all emerged from your chosen motel rooms the next morning, there were no living corpses invading the parking lot. The only reason any of you had been able to get any sleep in the first place was that extra layer of protection that the locked motel room doors provided you.

Over the next week and a bit, the security of the wall vastly improved as everyone settled in at the new base of operations. Aside from the wall, food was the most pressing issue, so daily tasks focused mostly on those two fronts. If you weren’t assigned to construction or guard duty, there was usually a small scouting team that was sent back into town semi-regularly to comb through buildings for useful supplies.

You and the YouTubers had quickly caught on that there would be no skipping time to when the next episode of the game picked up from. In some ways it was a relief - it gave you more time to prepare yourselves for the next trials and tribulations that the game was going to put you through - but it was also awful to endure the space of time that you were unsure of exactly what to expect. It made you and the others feel far more vulnerable than you had before, even in some of the more stressful situations. Just the fact that everything going on for the time being was relatively unknown to any of you was nerve-wracking.

Lilly and Kenny were in the midst of their unspoken battle for dominance, both often having differing opinions on how things should be run. On rare occasions the two would agree on something they would still only do so begrudgingly and not hide the glares they sent at each other’s backs. It was uncomfortable to witness and even more uncomfortable to be pulled into any of their spats, leaving much of the group a tad on edge. Both were too stubborn to back down.

With the reliability of the wall not being as much of a pressing issue anymore, the talk of supply runs was the main topic for arguments between the two outspoken characters vying for power. Kenny wanted to branch out more in searching nearby settlements, while Lilly wanted to remain cautious and stick to Macon as being the main source of supply runs. Although many of the game characters were complacent in allowing the two of them to hash things out, your YouTuber friends were not as content to remain silent and allow themselves to be bossed around. They were not shy to butt into arguments and voice their opinions, though they did it with much more class than Larry, who you suspected was mainly getting involved just for an excuse to yell at other people.

The common theme in the input from non-game characters was that of compromise between the two extremes Kenny and Lilly presented, and Lee often ended up agreeing with the middle road as well. Your numbers ended up overpowering the petty bickering and actually resulted in fairly favourable outcomes most of the time, where neither side was completely dissatisfied and what needed to happen did get done. It also alleviated some of the pressure from Lee to choose between Lilly and Kenny, which you could tell was a huge relief to him.

In terms of supply runs, the compromise that had been agreed upon in this instance wasn’t as egregious of a process as you had expected. While Lilly was not overly impressed with the agreement ending in venturing further from Macon than she made clear she was comfortable with, she was appeased by the fact that she would be leading the expedition herself and that it was to check out a setting that she was more familiar with. Kenny had been pleasantly surprised that she had given in as quickly as she had, even if he wasn’t completely happy with exactly where the supply run was going and not being able to go along for it himself.

The location to be searched through was an air force base that wasn’t too far of a journey away from the Travelier’s Motel. Well, to be more exact, it was the commissary of the Robins Air Force Base that was only about 16 miles south of Macon. This had been discovered thanks to the map that Ken had snagged from Clementine’s house what felt like months ago. Lilly admitted that she used to work at an air force base - as a mechanic? She hadn’t specified - and was confident that they should have supplies intact. After all, who would think to raid a building affiliated with an air force base when everything went to shit? The first places to get hit would be more likely targets for the general public, like superstores and grocery stores.

Kenny’s uncertainty had been that it wasn’t a place he thought would be worth the trip, but ultimately he gave in when Lilly remained sure of herself and offered to go on the journey to ensure the most of the trip. You suspected that the simple fact that Lilly was willing to go for somewhere other than Macon held a decent amount of weight in convincing Kenny to go along with the plan as well. In the end, both sides got what they wanted in some way or another.

Lilly’s terms were that she would choose who came with her and that she would be in charge of the expedition, which was agreed to with minimal grumbling from Kenny. She chose you, Felix, Cry, and Mark to be the ones to accompany her. She trusted Lee, but probably wanted him to stay behind to keep Kenny in check to some degree. Kenny tended to act rashly on his emotions while Lee had more of a calm demeanour, and Kenny greatly respected Lee, making Lee one of the best people to help Kenny keep his cool. Plus Clementine could get worried if Lee was gone for too long.

Mark had been in the group with Lilly before you guys had merged with them, so you’d bet that she trusted him to have her back and knew that he was capable of handling the mission. You suspected her reasons for choosing you, Cry, and Felix had something to do with you guys being that in-between group from her own and Kenny’s, meaning you might be less inclined to side with Kenny than Ethan might be, seeing as he had come into the group with them. Ken would have fit into that category with you as well, but he had gone on the last supply run and Lilly had said that she wanted to keep the group relatively small.

“How’s it goin’ (Y/n)?” Felix asked, bumping his hip into yours in a friendly manner and knocking you out of your retrospection.

You jostled your shoulder against him in retaliation and smiled at the lanky Swede. “Not too bad, how about yourself? Ready for the supply run today?”

“I’m good. It’s been too long since I’ve been outside the motor inn, I’m looking forward to a little drive. Just hoping we don’t run into any trouble while we’re out there.” As the two of you spoke, you meandered aimlessly along the wall, mostly to keep your feet busy. Maybe he was feeling the same buildup of energy from anticipating a run soon.

You examined the man beside you out of the corner of your eye out of habit, lips pulling downward at the state he was in. Felix had always been fairly slim, even from before getting pulled into the game from what you could tell in videos and pictures, and as the weeks wore on you were growing more concerned about him. His naturally sleek build was tipping into scrawny territory thanks to the rations available in the apocalypse, and you had witnessed him sneak a bit of his portion to Clementine on more than one occasion, which you doubted was helpful for him.

Then again, you couldn’t blame him for that little action. He had taken quite the shining to Clem, and over the course of time that you had all been in the motor inn together, she had grown closer to him as well. It was immensely difficult to dislike the young girl, but Felix’s willingness to join in on even some of her more childish games quickly endeared the foreign man to her in return. They were pretty adorable to watch sometimes. They never failed to make you smile individually, and when they teamed up you knew it would be impossible to hold back a grin at whatever they got up to.

“Felix! Felix!” Speak of the devil… Felix and you turned in unison to watch Clementine come running over, excitement painted across her face. “Hi (Y/n)!” she greeted you with enthusiasm, then turned back to Pewds. “Felix, you said you’d play soccer with me today!” She reached up to tug on Felix’s hand and started trying to drag the lanky Swede with her with no hesitation.

You laughed out loud at the sight and nodded to Pewds when he shot you a sheepish grin, silently asking for your forgiveness for the conversation being cut short. He offered no resistance to Clem’s insistent pulling and went over to where she had her worn soccer ball set up and ready for play. You could see Ethan already waiting near the designated playing area and another soft chuckle left you.

Clementine had already been closer to Ethan to begin with, with him being exposed to her before the rest of you had been, and that bond hadn’t changed since locking down the motor inn. His boundless energy that came with his ADHD was put to use in him being charged with keeping the kids occupied a lot of the time. He didn’t mind too much, aware that he could be pretty erratic without his usual medication to help keep him focused, and getting to spend time with Clementine was always a bonus.

With your companion so swiftly stolen away from you, you took a moment to check in on where everyone else was stationed. Ken and Kenny (huh, wasn’t that a fun little coincidence) were bent over the RV together, Ken having offered to help the redneck with getting the vehicle functioning again. Mark was with Doug as they worked on fortifying a few of the weaker parts of the defensive wall. Katjaa was rolling her eyes at an uncooperative Duck, who was complaining about wanting to play even while his mother remained adamant that he was overdue for a washing - which, granted, was mostly just wiping down with a wet cloth every now and then in an attempt to limit the grubbiness of everybody. Larry was skulking around in a corner like usual, glaring at Lee as he was going over their stock of supplies. Lilly was nowhere in sight, but was presumably in her room finishing up the final touches of the plan for the mission that day. And finally, Cry was stationed on top of the RV in an old lawn chair on watch duty.

The masked man’s face turned away from the forest to meet your eyes and he waved you over to him, so you allowed your feet to carry you to stand in front of the tall vehicle. Craning your neck to look up at him, you could make out the easy smile he was sporting, which was a good sign. At least that meant he probably wasn’t bearing any bad news. And he had a nice smile, you enjoyed seeing it.

“‘Sup?” Cry asked, and you huffed out a laugh.

“You’re the one that called me over,” you pointed out to him. He shrugged and didn’t bother with an answer to that, so you continued. “Not much. How’s watch going?”

“Boring,” he answered quickly. “I was actually wondering if you knew when we’d be leaving for the run; we don’t want to waste too much daylight. I get it that taking the truck will make it faster than walking, but we should still probably head out soon, right?”

“Yeah, you’re right. I’ll go ask Lilly about it.” You gave a little wave to Cry, but then his attention was drawn back to the forest as a walker trudged out of the trees and headed towards the motor inn. Before Cry could even ask, you turned your head back to him and said, “I got it.”

“Thanks (Y/n), you’re the best!” Cry said cheerfully, and the corner of your mouth involuntarily quirked up at his praise.

You pulled out your trusty crowbar as you approached the wall in your detour task before finding Lilly. The walker’s clouded eyes locked on you as it got closer, and it became more excited at the proximity of fresh meat. You wasted no time in jamming the straight end of the crowbar into its soft eye socket as soon as it was in range. When you yanked the metal back out of the corpse, the walker slumped to the ground lifelessly. 

You examined the carnage residue on your weapon with mild disgust. It was gross, but you had found a pair of biker gloves on one excursion about a week ago, which made you feel marginally better about handling your less-than-clean weapon. It also did wonders against blisters forming on your hands. A small detail, sure, but an annoying injury to acquire so easily.

“I think they’re wandering out of town,” Mark’s voice reached your ears, prompting you to put away your crowbar and turn your attention to him. “Or having five YouTubers holed up in one place is a volume hazard waiting to happen and they’re starting to figure that out.”

A bark of laughter escaped you at that and Mark grinned happily at having made you smile. “Definitely the second option,” you said, nodding sagely in a sarcastic manner. “We really should have seen it coming.”

“Are we leaving for the run soon?” Mark asked. It was the main event that everyone had been waiting on for a little while now. This would be the farthest anyone from the group had ventured since setting up at the motor inn, and everyone was a tiny bit nervous about the ordeal. You nodded in confirmation to Mark’s question. “Alright, I’ll clear out that walker for you before we head out then. You go make sure everyone else is ready and I’ll meet you at the truck.”

“Sure. And thanks Mark, I appreciate it.”

The American set to work recruiting Doug to cover his back while he got rid of the rotted corpse you had just disposed of. You set off on your path to Lilly’s motel room when you had another interruption, this time in the form of Lee Everett. He had paused in his activity of taking stock to gesture for your attention. Although you knew you should talk to Lilly as soon as possible to get on the road, you couldn’t turn away from Lee.

Right from the first day you had met him - what an eventful day that had been - he had expressed a trust and appreciation for you, which you returned easily. You knew his character from the game, but you hadn’t expected to gain his loyalty so quickly or in such a strong manner. You supposed getting Clementine to trust you had been a huge factor in getting Lee to have no hesitations befriending you. In fact, with all the YouTubers treating Clementine so well, Lee had warmed up to everyone fairly quickly. He also seemed to appreciate having more mediators around when arguments between Lilly (and often Larry) and Kenny broke out.

“Hey Lee, what’s up?”

“Hey (Y/n). I know you guys will probably be heading out soon, and I just wanted to ask, if it’s not too much trouble, could you keep an eye out for batteries while you’re out there? Clem’s still upset about her walkie-talkie breaking and-”

You expressed your willingness before Lee could launch into his full explanation. “Of course. I know that it’s important to her. I’ll see what I can find.”

Lee smiled kindly at you. “Thank you, I know you hate to see her sad as well. The batteries obviously aren’t a priority, but if you happen to spot any and could grab them that would be great. Just be safe when you go; we all want to see you back here unharmed.”

You made finger guns in Lee’s direction before thinking twice about it and only realized how strange it must have looked to him when he shot you a slightly incredulous stare. _Right; probably not the most common reaction people would have to having someone express their concern for your safety._ You laughed awkwardly and offered the more commonly used gesture of waving goodbye to him as you hurried to Lilly’s room, still mentally kicking yourself over your most recent fumble at social interaction.

Knocking on the brunette woman’s door, you focused yourself back on the task at hand: talk to Lilly without pissing her off. Seemed simple enough, but if you caught her on a bad day, she could have a similar temper to her father. She was prone to being slightly more reasonable than Larry at least though. You mostly avoided her father when possible, but had made an attempt to remain off of Lilly’s bad side.

The door swung open to reveal the person you were looking for, and a surprised expression flashed across her face at seeing you. “Oh, (Y/n). Good, I actually wanted to talk to you. Are you ready to go to the commissary?”

“I came here to ask you that,” you chuckled. She smiled, which was a rare sight and gave you the boost to push on through the conversation without fear of any outburst. “The others are pretty much ready. I’ll round them up and we’ll meet you at the truck in a few minutes.”

Lilly agreed to this arrangement and you left her in her room to get whatever she needed for the run while you went to collect your companions. They weren’t doing anything too important anyway, having expected to leave today. When Cry saw you exiting Lilly’s room, he called out to Doug to replace him on watch. 

Mark, who had just finished closing the gate with Doug after getting rid of the walker corpse, caught on that you were leaving soon and headed towards the truck, followed shortly after by Cry. That just left you with the task to retrieve Felix, who was occupied by passing a soccer ball around with Clementine and Ethan. Duck must have still been fighting his mother on getting clean, because the easily excited boy was nowhere to be seen.

Ethan and the Swede were cracking - thankfully appropriate - jokes back and forth to make Clementine giggle. You hated to intrude on Felix’s carefree time with Clem, but the sun was steadily making its way to the middle of the sky and you didn’t want to waste any more of the day before heading out. It already had everyone a little on edge to be venturing out further than usual, there was no need to add stress by being out when it got dark too.

“Pewds, we’re leaving soon. We should get ready and head over to the truck,” you called out to Felix, interrupting the happy trio. Felix thanked you for letting him know, then passed the ball to Ethan, gave Clementine’s head a friendly ruffling, and headed off to retrieve whatever he planned to bring on the run. You smiled and waved to Ethan and Clem and went to leave as well when the little girl ran over to you and tugged on your sleeve imploringly.

“Do you have to go?” she asked, staring up at you with big, round amber eyes. Her tone and face clearly displayed her pleading for your answer to be no.

You knelt down on one knee to be more at her level and placed a hand on her shoulder. “You know I do, Clem. Besides, Lee will still be here, and I’m sure Ethan is happy to keep playing with you.” She still didn’t look too happy. “We’ll be back before you know it, promise.”

“Pinky swear?” She held out her smallest finger.

You linked your shortest digit with hers. “Pinky swear.”

Before you could get up to join the others at the truck, Clementine launched herself at you and wrapped her arms around the back of your neck in a firm hug. After steadying yourself from her enthusiastic embrace, you returned the hug and patted her back in an effort to comfort her somewhat.

Ethan came to your rescue when the small girl showed no signs of letting go. “C’mon Clem,” he said softly, gently pulling at her shoulder to get her to release you from her grasp, “we should let (Y/n) be on her way. The sooner she’s able to leave, the sooner she’ll be back.”

“I won’t be alone,” you whispered to her, so that only she could hear. She finally let you go and you could see the determination set on her face. The reassurance that you wouldn’t be on your own seemed to help her be less worried. “I’ll come see you when I get back. You make sure everyone here stays safe.”

You thanked Ethan silently with a bob of your head, and he returned the gesture in acknowledgement, leading Clementine back to the soccer ball in the hopes of keeping her mind busy instead of worrying. Ken gave you a pat on the shoulder in encouragement as you passed by the RV, and you said a quick goodbye to him and Kenny while you were nearby.

Everybody who was on the mission was already waiting for you in the truck by the time you got there, but not even Lilly seemed annoyed by the slight hold up, so you assumed they had seen what had caused you to lag behind somewhat.

Kenny’s truck - which was the vehicle you were taking - had five seats, unlike the older model you, Cry, Ken, and Felix had driven into Macon, so you’re all able to fit inside of it without having to have anyone ride in the back. Lilly was behind the wheel, Mark in the passenger’s seat with the map to offer directions. Felix was waiting outside the truck, and you briefly wondered why until he gestured for you to hop in first and take the middle seat. When you raised an eyebrow at him, he simply gestured to his legs in a way of explanation. He and Cry had longer legs than you, so it must have been unanimously deemed that you would be the one stuck in the middle. 

“We got all the backpacks?” Lilly double-checked. Cry confirmed this by holding up a couple of the empty knapsacks shoved down by his feet. “Okay then, here we go.”

Ken and Kenny opened the front gates for the truck to pass through, and your small group left the safety of the motor inn to head for Robins Air Force Base Commissary. The interior of the truck remained fairly silent aside from Mark’s occasional directions for Lilly, but eventually you decided to break the silence by asking Lilly about the base.

She explained that commissaries were kind of like a grocery and household goods store for active and retired military persons. It extended to family as well, but overall would likely be a lot less well-known than the average grocery store for containing food and whatnot. Larry had been a military man, and Lilly herself had been a mechanical admin in an air force, so she was fairly familiar with what to expect.

You hoped that she was correct in her belief that it would be in better shape than other stores, because it felt like her opinion on supply runs outside of Macon was hanging on the success of this trip. Even though you had a loose guarantee of having enough food to survive based on events in the game, you weren’t sure if having six extra bodies to feed would throw off the game somehow, and were determined to try and make sure that more food could be secured on supply runs so that the extra strain on food wouldn’t cause trouble.

Conversation in the truck lulled once again once Lilly was done talking about the commissary, and you focused on the world outside the vehicle. The streets you drove on were abandoned, scattered with the odd vehicle here and there. Every now and then you would pass by some walkers too, but you were moving too fast to keep their interest in pursuing you. You debated suggesting Mark check the glovebox for CDs or something, but weren’t sure if Lilly would be up for having white noise distract from the mission so you kept your mouth shut.

You ended up tapping out the rhythm to a song on your lap, not thinking too much about it until Felix leaned in towards you and whispered the title of the song to you. You were confused as to why, but then realized he had said the song name in the form of a question, a guess to the rhythm you had been softly recreating. This quickly became a game to quietly play in the back seat, Cry getting sucked into it after realizing you and Felix were up to something. Whoever guessed the correct song the person was tapping would be designated the one to tap out a new song the next time. It went without saying that it had to be a fairly popular song to make it fair for the others to be able to get it.

The three of you kept this up, amusing yourselves quietly until the vehicle began to slow down, and you suddenly became aware that half an hour had passed and you were approaching your destination. The commissary was in another somewhat small town area, and you could feel your nerves start to return again without the distraction of the song tapping game to occupy you.

You managed to pull into a large parking lot without anything going awry. Hopefully things would stay quiet and with as little problems as possible. Lilly threw the truck into park and twisted in her seat to address everyone.

“Things look pretty empty for now, but keep your guard up. Don’t wander too far away from each other, and _stay quiet_. It’s a big store, so we might not have time to secure it. I say we grab what we need as quietly as possible and bring it back to the truck. If we don’t run into trouble, we can dump the food in the back and go in multiple times to grab more stuff. If it seems safe enough, maybe we can even grab a cart or something to haul everything out. Sounds good?” She received a chorus of determined agreements. “Let’s go.”

You all filed out of the truck, heads swivelling around instinctually to make sure there were no immediate threats. There were a couple of undead littered around the parking lot, but nothing alarming. They were slowly making their way towards the truck, the hum of its previously active engine having peaked their interest. There were few enough of them and they were slow enough that you didn’t concern yourselves with taking them out. With any luck, they will have lost interest in the idle truck by the time you finished your first haul of the building.

The five of you hurried over to the entrance, you and Cry keeping an eye out for any trouble while the other three worked on getting the sliding doors open. The building didn’t have much in the way of windows apart from the ones right by the door, so if you couldn’t figure out a way to get the front door open, the only other entrance would probably be by the shipment unloading area. Hopefully the front door would be manageable.

The murmured swearing from behind you wasn’t the most encouraging sign of success, but you kept your eyes trained forward. When a few walkers made it close enough to the truck, you and Cry stepped forward to take them out before they could become too much of a problem. After a couple more minutes of swearing, your other companions finally managed to release the front door.

You headed inside the first little area, and getting through the second set of sliding doors was a faster process with the knowledge of how they had gotten through the outer doors. Lilly led the way in, and the rest of you followed.

Another thing about the lack of windows in the store meant that very little natural lighting made its way into the store, and the building was fairly large, so the light from outside barely permeated past the first aisle. In other words, the store was very dark and creepy. On the good side, there were no hungry growls yet to indicate unwanted residents in the vicinity. 

“Spread out and grab what you can, but don’t go too far from each other. Always have at least one other person in sight,” Lilly whispered before moving forward. 

You all bypassed the area that claimed to have fresh produce, knowing that it would have gone bad by this point. The frozen, dairy, and meat sections were another safe bet to not have much in the way of useful products. Lilly and Cry disappeared down the aisle marked to have dry and baking goods, likely looking for the cereals, crackers, and pastas sub-listed on the aisle category sign. Mark went for the aisle a few away from them with beverages and canned goods, Felix following along. 

You almost went along, but then spotted that the adjacent aisle had some cooking supplies, like pots and pans. If Lilly and Cry were grabbing pastas, you’d likely want something to hold them and be able to cook them over a campfire or something. Sure, the RV might have a few cooking supplies, but grabbing some extras couldn’t hurt. While you’d technically be out of anyone else’s sight if you went down the next aisle, you decided it was close enough to not be too much of an issue.

Your aisle was the furthest from the door yet, so the darkness was abundant and you didn’t have vision for more than a few feet ahead of you. Because of this you were cautious and it took you longer than was probably necessary to locate a few sturdy looking pots to try and shove in your bag. That’s when you ran into the problem of the pots being way too awkward to fit into your bag well without taking up too much space. You sighed, and decided that it had been quiet enough in the store to risk grabbing a shopping cart.

You balanced your pots in your arms haphazardly as you made your way back towards the front of the store where you had seen some shopping carts stored. You unloaded your prizes into a cart as quietly as you could, then took it and wheeled it over to the aisle Mark and Felix had gone down. Just as you turned the corner, you almost bowled over a startled Mark, who let out a yelp in surprise. You apologized quickly, asking if he was alright.

He chuckled good-naturedly, waving an arm at you, “Yeah, yeah I’m fine, don’t worry about it. I was just coming to get a cart actually; the cases of water are too heavy and awkward to carry more than a couple at a time.” He kept his voice low to avoid any more noise than his yelp had already caused.

Felix appeared next to Mark, seemingly to ensure that the YouTuber of Korean descent wasn’t in any trouble. When he spotted you with the cart, he understood that you had probably just startled Mark and that he did not need any assistance fighting for his life.

“Here,” you said, pushing your cart to them, “take this one. I’ll go grab another one.”

They accepted your offer and you went back the way you had just come from. On your way, you paused by Lilly and Cry’s aisle to let them know how it was going and assure them that Mark was fine in case they had heard his yelp and were concerned. You ran into Lilly first, who was working on fitting a box of granola bars into her bag. You let her know Mark was okay, then asked her if she wanted you to grab a cart for her.

“Okay, yeah, a cart might be helpful. It seems quiet enough in here.”

Accepting your new role of being on cart duty, you went to retrieve another trolley and delivered it to Lilly, who thanked you offhandedly as she began shoving whatever good food she could find into the cart. You took a moment to examine the aisle you were in. The shelves looked a little bit sparse. Not as bad as you expected a lot of places looked at this point, but still a bit less than you would have hoped for.

As if reading your thoughts, Lilly spoke up again. “It looks like some people did come here to stock up when this all went down, but I’m thinking that there could be some more stuff back in storage that might not have been touched yet. We’ll get what we can from this part of the store into the truck, then we’ll come back to check out storage.”

She did have a point. You nodded, and went to get another cart for yourself. This time when you went towards the front, you peeked out the windows by the entrance to check on the truck. There were a few walkers meandering closer to the truck than they had been before, but they weren’t attempting to break in, having no interest in a vehicle that wasn’t making any noise or that had any visible victims contained within.

More concerning was the small group of walkers you could see headed in the direction of the commissary from the street you had driven in from. The living corpses you had passed on your way through the nearby streets must have followed in your direction, gathering more walkers on their path. While they weren’t an immediate danger, it was probably best to move on before they could reach the parking lot.

With that in mind, your pace was more brisk as you went to the last couple of aisles you wanted to check out. Once again, you were technically going against Lilly’s wishes of sticking together more closely, but in light of recent discovery you knew that time was of the essence and wanted to get as many supplies as you could.

In the aisle for personal care items, you grabbed a couple boxes of tampons and pads (still getting periods was going to be a pain to deal with on top of everything else that was going on in the apocalyptic world, and you were sure Lilly and Katjaa would probably appreciate your foresight on this one), some soap, and some toilet paper, then moved on to the beverages and canned goods aisle.

Mark and Felix had focused their cart’s contents on cases of water bottles mainly, so you started piling whatever cans of beans, fruits, veggies, or soups were left on the shelves. It didn’t take long for you to empty the shelves, but your cart was still barely half full.

“(Y/n), what’s going on? Everything okay?” Mark asked, having noticed your somewhat frantic movements.

“There’s a group of walkers that followed us from up the street headed our way; I’d rather be out of here before they get here and make things more difficult,” you replied honestly. “It’s not a herd or anything to panic over, but still best to avoid them if possible. There’s enough of them that it’d be difficult to fight them all off.”

“Oh shit, got it,” Felix said, his movements also becoming a tad more rushed in his haste to get finished with the building as soon as possible.

By the time you made it back to Lilly and Cry’s aisle, they were heading back towards the entrance, their cart also just barely touching the halfway point to being full. You peered at the dimly illuminated shelves behind them to see that they had all been cleared. The haul wasn’t too bad, but disappointing for the distance and effort put into the journey. You really hoped Lilly was right about there being more in the back.

“There are walkers coming our way,” you forewarned the two in front of you. You began pushing your cart out to the entrance, making a beeline for the truck. “We should hurry and get this stuff put away then be fast about checking storage.”

Your suggestion was given no resistance, and you heard the footsteps behind you quicken their pace as they followed your path. Cry and Mark took care of the couple of walkers that were too close for comfort while the rest of you threw all the supplies you had gathered into the bed of the truck, eyeing the approaching walkers in the near distance wearily all the while.

You all jogged back into the building, not wanting to waste any more time to allow the gathering of walkers to get any closer to your location. At the back of the store, Lilly located the swinging double doors that led to the back storage area. Being separated by another set of doors and being towards the back of the building, this area was almost completely dark. Mark volunteered to hold the doors open to let whatever natural light reached the back of the store to get in.

It all went wrong so fast.

Lilly had everyone split off to search the area, insisting that you remain in pairs for this area because of its oppressing darkness. Cry was the one closest to you, so you went with him while Felix went with Lilly. Even with the limited vision available, it soon became apparent that the back area was fairly bare as well. When you and Cry were nearing the wall farthest to the left from the doors Mark was holding open and your eyes were finally adjusting to the shadows around you to make out what looked like another closed door, a figure jumped out from behind a stack of wooden pallets.

Before you or Cry had any chance of reacting, the figure swung something at Cry - who had been a step ahead of you, leading the way - and a sickening thud of something hard connecting with flesh reached your ears. You yelled his name in a mixture of fear, concern, and surprise, receiving only a pained groan in response. The masked man stumbled back into you, and you were suddenly tasked with keeping him upright. The pounding of footsteps was coming from behind you, but it took you a moment to differentiate it from the pounding that was echoing in your ears of the sound of Cry getting hit by… _whatever_ and _whoever_ had attacked him.

There was little comfort in the lack of growls as indication that it wasn’t a walker that had lashed out. People could be dangerous too, maybe even more so than walkers. You felt a burning building up inside of you.

“Cry?! (Y/n)?!” Felix’s panicked voice came from close behind you.

“Over here!” you called out, still struggling to keep Cry on his feet.

Alongside trying to make sure Cry wasn’t going to collapse, you were also preoccupied with trying to squint through the blackness to see where the assailant was so that you could be ready to either defend Cry from another assault or be presented the opportunity to attack the offender before he could try another hit. You spotted a shadow shift behind the pallets and wasted no time in lowering Cry to the ground to lean up against a couple of crates. A strange smacking noise came from the direction you had seen the shadowy figure and you used this to your advantage to locate the general area they must’ve been. 

Just as a circle of light flickered to life and temporarily blinded you, you unleashed the rage that was scorching your insides and threw yourself forward and swung your fist at whoever had attacked Cry. The pain in your fist from connecting with the person was satisfying and you jabbed your other fist forward to get another hit in. A clanking sounded as whatever the person was holding fell out of their hands. It was a man’s voice that cried out in pain, so you then jerked your knee upwards to connect with his crotch.

That worked to immobilize the man. He immediately keeled over and was gasping for air, collapsing to his knees and clutching his pelvic area with one hand and holding up the other in a defensive position. A metal pipe was on the ground on his right, a flashlight lay abandoned on the ground to his left, having rolled away from him when he dropped it.

You kicked his weapon out of his reach and snatched up the source of light, shining it on him, your face a cold and impassive mask as you surveyed the cowering man in front of you. He had black hair and was wearing a dark jacket, but his face was downturned so that you couldn’t see any of his facial features.

“Cry, are you okay?” you asked, voice deceptively calm for how hard your heart was pounding. _God… if he was hit with that pipe, how could he be okay?_

The heavy footfalls from Felix, Lilly, and Mark stopped, the three of them having arrived from where they had run from to make sure you and Cry were okay. You didn’t take your eyes off of the stranger in front of you. The fact that Cry hadn’t answered you yet was concerning and made the hot flash of anger flare up inside you again.

“Cry, man, can you hear me?” Felix asked, and you felt some relief in knowing that the masked man had his friend checking in on him now at least. That also meant that you could focus your attention on the bastard who had caused Cry to be unresponsive.

“Are you alone?” Your voice was so cold that you almost didn’t recognize it. You didn’t need to offer up any threat to demand an answer, the tone of your voice was enough of a threat by itself.

The stranger also recognized the danger in your tone. “Y-yes,” he coughed out. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize- I thought you were those _things_ \- I- Is your friend okay? I didn’t mean to, I swear!”

Your fists clenched, itching to take out more of your anger at the wide-eyed bespectacled face upturned towards you finally, but you restrained yourself. “Shut up,” you hissed through gritted teeth. The man stopped his blabbering right away.

Another of Cry’s pained noises bounced around the dark room and you dug your nails into the fabric of your biker gloves to refrain from lashing out again. 

“We should go,” Lilly spoke up. You could hear the uncertainty causing her voice to waver. You weren’t sure if she was unsettled by the walkers that would be getting closer, the fact that someone had gotten hurt, or by your uncharacteristic anger.

“Is there any more food back here?” Mark asked, coming to stand beside you with his arms crossed, emphasizing his biceps. You imagined the stranger must have been quite intimidated. To get taken down by you, then to see you joined by others, you could tell that he was immensely regretting his rash attack on Cry.

“Yes! Yes, I- I can help you!” 

“I think you’ve helped enough,” you muttered, narrowing your eyes at the man.

He gulped in fear and wisely decided to remain on his knees while still unsure of whether it was safe for him to stand or not. “There’s more food,” he explained. “I can show you, just- please, I can’t be alone anymore… let me come with you! _Please_!”

“Why would we let you come with us?” you asked. “You _attacked_ us.”

“I didn’t mean to! I thought you were some of the dead ones that finally got in and I panicked! Please let me come with you,” he begged, “I’ll give you all the food I have stored in the break room!”

“Show us how much you have, and maybe we have a deal,” Lilly answered, glancing back towards where the entrance to the store was, no doubt worrying about the proximity of the walkers outside. “Felix, you take care of Cry. Mark and (Y/n), grab the carts.”

The man jerked up at Lilly’s commands, confusion on his face, but he shook it off and took the chance of getting to his feet now that Lilly had taken charge again. You handed her the flashlight and hurried over to where the carts had been left with Mark, shooting Cry a worried glance over your shoulder as you passed him. He was mumbling something, but you couldn’t make out what he was saying. Just knowing that he was at least somewhat conscious was reassuring enough for you at the moment.

Once you and Mark returned, the stranger led the three of you to the doorway that you and Cry had been going towards before he had attacked you. He fished around in his pocket for a couple of seconds, retrieved a key, then jammed it into the lock and wiggled it around to get the door open. 

The man did indeed have more food stockpiled in the break room. If he really was the only one eating all of it, then it was enough to last him for likely over a year, so long as he rationed it well. You only gawked at it for a couple of seconds before you set to work loading all of it into your carts and backpacks. The stranger joined in with helping, choosing to help fill Mark’s cart in order to keep more distance from you. You had no issue with that arrangement.

While the two carts started to fill up, Lilly went and got a third to make sure there would be enough room to fit everything and get it back to the truck. Once everything was crammed into the trolleys, the four of you moved as fast as you could towards the outside without spilling any food.

The walkers were almost upon you when you made it out to the parking lot. They were just crossing the sidewalk to get into the lot when the rest of you exited the store. Cry was standing on his own, using the truck as a support while Felix took care of the straggling walkers that had been in the parking lot earlier, killing them to make sure your path to the truck wouldn’t be obstructed.

The next couple of minutes were a blur. You all made a mad dash to the truck and proceeded to throw everything into the truck bed as speedily as humanly possible. You left the carts abandoned outside as you rushed into the vehicle, the stranger hopping into the passenger seat - likely not wanting to risk sitting beside you in the back - and Lilly getting in the driver’s seat. You scrambled into the back, followed by Mark, then Felix helped Cry up before climbing in himself. With the lack of a sixth seat, Cry ended up laying across your laps, his head on your thighs and his feet at Felix’s end of the truck. Lilly started the truck and sped off just as the first few walkers reached the vehicle. One managed to hit the side mirror off as Lilly pulled away.

The vehicle was filled with panting as you all calmed down from adrenaline rushes. None of you were quite able to breathe a sigh of relief until you were clear of the small town and on the more deserted roads on the way back to the motor inn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> longest chapter yet, tallying in at over 8200 words, wowie wowie. i hope you enjoyed it! see you soon with another chapter!


	14. [Fourteen]

The sun blazed in through the windows on the left of the truck, and it somehow felt wrong that it was still only the afternoon. After the stress that you had just gone through, the day felt like the sun should have been setting. The ride back to the Travelier Motel was oppressively silent, no one having any idea what to say in light of recent events. 

You were mostly focussed on Cry, who was dozing off in your lap. You didn’t feel up to speaking to the person who had caused the gnarly cut and bruise forming on your friend’s jaw quite yet, so you adamantly concentrated your attention solely to your friend to avoid acting out again. Every time you so much as laid your eyes on the stranger in the passenger’s seat, that burning rage from the commissary threatened to overwhelm you again. It was somewhat irrational, you knew, but you also knew that you wouldn’t feel better until you knew that Cry was truly okay.

With the object the stranger had yielded being a metal pipe, there were pros and cons to the impact it had. On the redeeming side, it was a blunt object, so the injury wasn’t fatal or too gruesome, even though it did still cause a gash to split open on Cry’s lower jaw. The cons were that metal, unsurprisingly, was _hard_ and meant that the hit was definitely one to take seriously. A lump had already formed where the main point of contact had been, and an angry red - that would eventually darken to purples and blues - splashed out from there, accompanied by the slow swelling of blood from the open portion of the injury. 

While Cry was out of it, you took the opportunity to lightly prod at his jaw, relieved to find that it felt mostly normal - apart from the lump, of course. Hopefully that meant his jaw wouldn’t be disconnected or have any more lasting problems like a break or fracture in the bone.

Your tactic of ignoring the stranger was rudely interrupted by the man himself speaking up into the silence of the truck. “Thank you,” he said, voice barely above a whisper. “I know that I messed up back there, and I really am sorry about hurting your friend, but… thanks for not leaving me back there. I swear I’ll make it up to you guys somehow. I’m Mark, by the way.”

“The food you shared is a good start,” Lilly bridged the gap begrudgingly when everyone else hesitated to answer. “But you’ll have to work hard with the rest of us when we get back to the motor inn. And we’ll have to talk to everybody to make sure they’re okay with you staying.”

Although you had remained silent partially because of your lingering blame on this Mark, part of it was also from the belated realization of who he was. You hadn’t been thinking about the game as much when you had taken him down in the commissary, but when you thought back to his features, you realized that you did know the man. He was the character who joined the group between episode one and episode two of the first season of the game. 

“Well Mark, that’s bound to be a little bit confusing, because my name is also Mark,” Markiplier joked lightly from beside you. “That’ll up our duplicates to two pairs; a Ken and a Kenny, and two marks. What are the odds?”

“Oh, uh,” the other Mark stumbled over his words for a moment, trying to come up with a solution, “well, my last name is Middleton, if that helps. I mean, you were known as Mark first to everybody, right? So to make it less confusing, I could go by my last name.”

“Works for me,” Mark shrugged, then moved on to introducing the rest of the occupants of the vehicle. “Our fearless driver beside you is Lilly, the guy beside me is Felix, the lovely woman who kicked your ass earlier is (Y/n), and the guy you clubbed is Cry.” Leave it to Mark to be blunt about the whole thing.

Middleton visibly flinched at the reminder of his mistake, and you saw him squirm uncomfortably in his seat, his eyes meeting yours briefly in the rearview mirror before they flickered away again. 

“Sorry about that. Really,” he repeated, shoulders slumped dejectedly.

You thought about giving him a biting remark, but in the end you just sighed. You knew it was a mistake, especially now that you realized who he actually was in relation to the game. There would be no point in harassing him further, except to alienate yourself from him due to your protectiveness over your friends. It would probably be unfair of you to hold a grudge against him for it.

“I understand,” you responded after a few moments of silence. You didn’t want to say it was okay, because it wasn’t, but you did understand why he had done it. “You didn’t mean to do it. Just… Be more careful when you swing next time, yeah?”

Middleton didn’t get the chance to express his gratitude to your answer before someone else spoke up. “I agree with (Y/n),” Cry’s hoarse voice claimed your full attention immediately. “No more friendly fire, please.”

You stared down at him with a margin of disbelief at the fact that he was joking around so easily after the events that he had just been victim to. _Ridiculous man_ , you thought fondly to yourself. Felix beat you to the point of asking how Cry was feeling.

Cry began to sit up, but then winced and appeared to rethink any unnecessary movement. “Ugh, definitely been better. Where are we?”

“Almost back to the motor inn,” Lilly supplied, eyes remaining fixed on the road.

Sure enough, the scenery outside the truck was starting to look more familiar as the truck cruised onward. It was decided that a group briefing would be called immediately upon return in order to figure out what to do with Middleton. Lilly asked if you and Felix would take Cry to his room so he could rest when you all got back, and assigned Mark to stay near the truck to watch over Middleton while she gathered the rest of the group.

Upon reaching what was considered your home since being stuck in the zombie apocalypse, the person on watch (Ken) called out for the gates to be opened for the truck to be allowed access back inside. When the truck was parked, you all - save for Middleton - exited the vehicle and went about your tasks. Lilly marched off with a stony expression on her face from how seriously she was taking the situation, Mark situated himself on guard outside the truck, and you and Felix worked together to support Cry between the two of you.

He mumbled his thanks to both of you and worked to support his own weight to the best of his ability so as to not inconvenience you. Getting to Cry’s room wasn’t too difficult, and you left Felix supporting most of Cry’s weight as you went about getting the door open and pulling back the bed sheets in order to place Cry down comfortably on his mattress. Felix went to retrieve a bottle of water and some food for whenever Cry was feeling up to it, leaving you with the masked YouTuber as you adjusted his surroundings to settle him in.

“We should probably get Katjaa in here to check you out,” you mumbled, more to yourself than anything. While you didn’t suspect the injury was too sinister, it would be best to make sure that he would be okay from someone who had a bit more experience in the health field.

“Mmhm,” Cry hummed, though it was mainly noncommittal if you had to guess any meaning from it. You weren’t sure if he was fully aware of what was going on at the moment, but the fact that he was replying in some capacity to your words encouraged you.

“Do you need anything? Pewds is fetching you water and some food in case you want any.” There was no answer to this and you deflated somewhat, but pushed on anyway. “Are you okay if I go get Katjaa real quick? Just to make sure you’re not hurt too bad.”

“Nngh,” Cry grunted, hand outstretched towards you from his otherwise stationary form on the bed. “Stay. Please?” Although the words were mumbled, you could still make out the meaning.

Well, there was no way to deny him such a simple request. “Of course, Cry.”

You pulled up a nearby chair to be positioned closer to the edge of the bed and plopped yourself down on it. You often wondered if your presence had a similar calming effect on Cry in some moments like it had for you that night that the two of you had been stuck alone in that apartment in Macon. Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise you too much. It was easy to make stronger bonds in a shorter period of time with people that you suffered hardships with, and being stuck in the zombie apocalypse together would definitely count as a hardship in your book. If Cry was feeling more vulnerable than normal currently, then it would make sense that he wanted to stay close to some people he trusted.

Cry’s arm hadn’t fallen back under the covers yet from when he had reached out to you, and you found your gaze fixated on it. A strange urge to grab his hand and hold it within your own washed over you. Just as you were starting to subconsciously lean forward, the door opened again and Felix returned, knocking you out of your trance. You covered up your forward momentum by turning the movement into you carefully tucking Cry’s arm back under the blankets. Felix barely batted an eye at the action and instead placed the water bottle and small packet of mini crackers on the bedside table.

“Lilly has everyone together out there to talk about what happened, we should go out and join them. Cry’ll be fine, right man?” Pewds directed the question towards his friend, but the man in question seemed to have drifted off sometime between either of you noticing.

You hesitated, not sure if you should leave Cry’s side when he had asked you to stay just a few minutes earlier. Then again, you would likely be expected to give details of what had happened at the commissary, and you could use the opportunity to fetch Katjaa after the meeting was done.

Mind made up, you got to your feet and walked with Felix out to the parking lot where the rest of your group was gathered around a pacing Lilly, Mark guarding the truck with the new occupant a small distance away. You managed to catch the tail end of her retelling.

“- and he showed us a back room where he had a large stock of food stored - enough to keep us fed for months,” she was saying. “He helped us load all of it in the back of the truck, and we ended up bringing the guy back with us too. He attacked Cry, but he did also help us, and we were in too much of a rush to argue with him about whether he should come back here or not. Now that he’s here, we should figure out what we want to do about him.” At this point she singled you out, “(Y/n), you’re the one who was with Cry when he was attacked, and you subdued Middleton; what do you have to say about it?”

“He can hit hard,” you jested, but it came out more flat than you intended, so you winced and pushed on. “He said he thought we were the dead finally breaking into the store, and the back room was dark, so he swung first and asked questions later. As much as I’m pissed that he hurt Cry, I can understand his reasoning, and I honestly don’t think he had any ill-will towards us.”

“Felix?” Lilly prompted the man beside you.

Felix shrugged, “Doesn’t seem like a bad dude to me. And he did share his food with us. I wouldn’t feel right kicking him out after dragging him all the way out here and taking all his stuff.”

Lilly then proceeded to go around the other members of the group and hear their thoughts on Mark Middleton, who was awaiting his fate in the truck. The other YouTubers took cues from you and Felix, trusting you to know if the character would be trustworthy enough, and Lee (which also meant Clem), Doug, and Katjaa took a similar stance as well. Kenny was more hesitant about it, saying that he would want to make sure the new guy was kept under a close watch for a while to make sure, but overall was okay with letting him stay for the time being. Larry scoffed and voiced his opinion about how they were being soft and how the man had proved himself to be a danger to the group. 

Interestingly enough, Lilly didn’t overtly express her opinion one way or the other. You weren’t sure if it was because she agreed with what had been said, or knew that even if she voted for the other way that she was far too outnumbered to make any difference.

“Okay, then he’ll stay for now. We’ll keep an eye out to make sure that he’s not a danger to the rest of us, and we'll have him helping out around here so that he stays useful,” Lilly declared. It sounded weird to hear someone be permitted to be kept around because they could be “useful”, but you supposed that that was the reality for the world that you were living in at the moment. “If we can free up one of the rooms, we can put him in a separate sleeping place to limit the opportunity for any kind of attack overnight from him, just in case.”

That was a point you hadn’t really considered. With there being six extra independent adults than there usually were at this point in the game, rooming was different than it would have been otherwise. The Travelier Motel was a fairly small establishment, and only actually had nine rooms - six on the ground level, and three on the second level of the one building. Even with Kenny and his family sharing one room (the biggest one, that had two queen beds), that still left ten other adults (and one child) and only eight other rooms.

Initially, when people had been choosing their rooms, Clementine had been conflicted over whether she should stay with Lee or with you. Lee debated over it for a while, then decided it might seem odd for her to stay with a man that wasn’t technically her father, and told her that she could share a room with you (so long as you were fine with it). The other YouTubers took one for the team since they had known each other for longer than other members of the group had and paired up; Ethan and Mark agreed to share a room, and Ken and Felix roomed together in another. Everyone else got a room to themselves.

With Mark Middleton now joining the group, a new arrangement was required. With him being a stranger, nobody would feel safe rooming with him, so there would need to be some adjusting to where people were staying in order to make it work.

“I don’t mind sharing a room with someone else,” Doug piped up. “If Lee or Cry were okay with it, I’d have no problem moving into one of their rooms.”

“Um, Cry’s kinda out of it right now, so maybe you could stay with Lee until he has a chance to recover a bit and decide?” you suggested, half directing your question at Lee to see if he’d be fine with that arrangement.

“Yeah, Doug can share with me as we figure all this out,” Lee provided.

That pretty much concluded the impromptu meeting, and people slowly began to scatter back to doing their own things - except for a select few that Lilly chose to help her sort through the goods that had been gathered on the mission and get them all stored away properly. Namely she ended up with Kenny (who refused to be left out), Lee, and Ken. It was a good idea to get everything put away rather than leave it out in the open overnight. You were about to head over to Katjaa when a young girl attached herself to your hip in a hug. You smiled down at Clementine and rubbed the girl’s back affectionately.

“Hey Clem, how are you?”

“Glad you guys are all back,” she beamed up at you. “Before it got dark too! I kept on thinking about how I hoped you’d be back before bedtime. I like it when you tell me about your favourite books before we go to bed, the stories help me sleep better.”

You laughed warmly at her enthusiasm for the books you told her about that came from the real world. You weren’t sure if The Walking Dead universe had all the same pop culture, but figured telling Clementine some plots of books from back home wouldn’t be harmful to her. It was actually nice to hear that she enjoyed listening to you recount their epic tales and that it helped her sleep better at night. Going to bed with thoughts of magic and adventures was much preferable over the harsh reality of zombies and death.

“You indeed have your storyteller back for the night. But before that, I need to talk to Katjaa really quickly; Cry got hit pretty hard and we want to make sure that it’s nothing too serious,” you informed the young girl.

She grabbed onto your hand and followed along without protest as you continued on your way to talk to the older woman you sought out. When you got to Katjaa and explained the situation, she agreed without any fuss to check on Cry and make sure he wasn’t in for any more than just a nasty bruise.

“Do you want to get snuggled into bed and wait for me while I go with Katjaa?” you asked Clem.

She shuffled her feet a bit, then shyly looked up at you. “Can I come see Cry with you? I want to make sure he isn’t hurt super bad too.”

“Of course you can Clem, I just thought you might be tired.” You didn’t mention that she was being so cute that it was practically melting your heart. “I’m sure Cry will be more than happy to have you check in on him as well. Just between you and me… I think you might be his favourite one here,” you whispered to her conspiratorially.

She giggled in delight and your small group of three made your way over to Cry’s motel room. By this point the sun was gone, and even though Cry’s curtains to his room were open, the room wasn’t the most well lit. Still, Katjaa diligently sat down on the chair beside Cry’s bed and started examining his injury while you and Clem stood off to the side, silently watching her.

Cry woke up with a slight jolt when Katjaa prodded at his jaw, and a hiss of pain came out between clenched teeth. His eyes darted around frantically for a moment, eventually landing on you and Clem and remaining there for a few seconds. This seemed to help him recall what was going on and you watched as he made himself relax and allow Katjaa to continue in her administrations. With him being conscious again, she took the liberty to ask him a few questions about how he was feeling as well to help her figure out her verdict for his case.

After a few minutes, she stood up again and brushed off her hands. “He appears to be fine. He is lucky he got hit in the jaw instead of the eye or temple, or even neck. He could have been in a lot more pain and trouble otherwise,” she said. “He will be okay. It will be swollen and painful for a little while, and I’m sure he’ll get a dark bruise, but everything other than that is in place. I wish I had ice or something to give you, but… Well, anyway, I’ll come back with some mild painkillers to help you sleep through the night.” With a warm goodnight to you and Clementine, Katjaa left to go grab Cry painkillers from the medical stash.

The door hadn’t even fully closed before Clementine stepped forward and, much to yours and Cry’s confusion, placed her hands gently on Cry’s wound and held them there. She was staring at Cry expectantly, waiting for some sort of reaction. 

Seeing the bewildered confusion on his face, you decided to rescue him. “Uh, Clem… what are you doing?” you asked, holding back a laugh at the strangeness of her action.

“My hands are cold, and Katjaa said ice would help him feel better, so I’m putting my hands there instead,” she supplied helpfully.

Realization dawned in Cry’s eyes and they crinkled with mirth. “Very thoughtful of you, Clem, thank you,” he said, no trace of sarcasm in his tone. ”I’ll feel fine when Katjaa comes back with some meds though, so you won’t have to help me out the whole night. I appreciate the thought though, you’re too kind.”

Clementine’s smile stretched wide across her face and she retracted her hands from the injured man. She rocked back and forth on her feet, then leaned forward and gave Cry a hug, careful to be cautious as to refrain from causing him any more pain. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

One of Cry’s arms reached up to half return the embrace, a happy smile on his face that no doubt caused his jaw to ache from the size of the grin. “Thanks Clem, I feel much better already knowing you’re looking out for me.” He released her as she stepped back, then his eyes flickered over to you again. “You and (Y/n) should probably be heading to bed though. If I remember correctly, (Y/n) has the morning watch shift, and I know you tend to keep her company, so you both need to get your beauty sleep. I’ll talk to you both tomorrow, sound good?”

Clementine looked over to you for confirmation, so you stepped forward to stand beside her at Cry’s bedside. “Sounds good,” you answered, leaning down to fuss over his blanket briefly and make sure he was settled comfortably. “Sleep well Cry, we’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Goodnight Cry!” Clementine echoed, holding your hand once more as you headed out to your designated motel room.

“Goodnight Clem, goodnight (Y/n),” Cry said in farewell, sounding more tired already now that he wasn’t expected to stay awake for much longer. When you looked back at him before exiting the door, he managed to give you a small wave and upturned lips. You did the same for him.

Clem and you made the trek up the metal stairs to the second floor, Clem eagerly leading the way. She had thought that choosing a room on the second floor would be cooler than the ground floor when everyone had first been settling in, and you had no reason to deny the girl her desire, so the two of you shared the first room from the stairs on the second level. Some days you hated having to put in the extra effort to climb the stairs, but in the end it wasn’t a huge deal, and Clementine’s excitement always made it worth it.

“Do you remember where we left off in the story I was telling you?” you asked, prompting the young girl to recount what you had last said so that you’d know where to pick up from for the nightly routine of storytelling that the two of you had in place.

“Of course!” Clementine said, and wasted no time in launching into a detailed summary, which caused you to smile as you both burrowed into bed. Once she had finished retelling where you had left off the night prior, you took over and resumed recounting the plot of one of your favourite books to your audience of one, who was listening with rapt attention.


	15. [Fifteen]

What happened at the commissary left an impression on Lilly, and she returned to stubbornly refusing to send scouting groups out past Macon. If anything, she became more vehement on this stance. With the amount of supplies gathered and the dangers that venturing farther out proved to hold, she redoubled down on her argument that there was no need to risk more than was necessary. The stock of supplies was nice to have, and with rationing in place, it would be a good buffer to keep the group going, so long as Macon could continue to replenish them enough with the reduced runs sent in.

Kenny didn’t get into the argument with her like you had originally expected, but instead just shook his head in disdain at her adamance and walked off to tinker around with the RV again. When anyone else tried to reason with her that it could be beneficial to still look for supplies in places other than Macon, she would shut them down without giving them an opportunity to properly present their case. 

Cry had been resting up and healing fairly well. Katjaa advised him to stay with lighter work so that he didn’t strain his body too much while it worked to fix him up naturally. He still insisted on completing his shifts for watch, but was relieved from construction or scouting duty, other people filling his space - usually Middleton, giving him the opportunity to prove himself to the group.

As the days wore on, Cry got more and more antsy, obviously getting frustrated with his injury making things more difficult for him. With gentle nudging from you, Clementine quickly caught on to his frustration and started to spend more time with him, which improved the masked man’s mood greatly. With your down time less occupied with Clem than it normally would have been, you found yourself interacting with others more often.

Katjaa was soft-spoken, but you enjoyed spending time with her when you wanted a more relaxed moment. She also tended to keep a pretty optimistic outlook and was gently yet steadily supportive, and you found it to be uplifting to be around her. And, of course, if you were around Katjaa, you would often find yourself running into Kenny or Duck regularly as well.

You were one of the few that would humour Duck’s energetic ramblings about his favourite comic books or television series, so he always perked up when he saw an opportunity to have a semi-willing audience. Katjaa would always give you a special smile when she saw her boy react so positively to you, and it made the headache Duck could give you on occasion worth it. He was just an overexcited little boy, after all.

Kenny also saw the way you treated his family, and his approval for you grew. He had already expressed that he thought highly of the loyalty you showed Lee when escaping the drugstore, and showing his family kindness increased his opinion of you greatly. 

As you were walking past the RV that he was working on - possibly just to avoid another confrontation with Lilly - he called you over. You didn’t know why he would want to speak with you at that specific moment, but you went over to him regardless.

“Hey Kenny, how’s it going?” you asked in greeting, gesturing to the vehicle he had been tampering around with it.

“With more work, this thing could be a viable option,” he answered, placing his hands on his hips and surveying the compartment underneath the hood with an ambitious glint in his eye. “We don’t know how long this motor inn will be good for, so I want to have another option prepared for my family. I thought the military would’ve started clearing this mess by now, but I’m startin’ to have my doubts.”

You nodded in understanding. It wasn’t a surprise to you, knowing the game, and it made sense with Kenny’s primary concern always being his own family. “That’s smart; it’s a good idea to have a backup plan.”

Kenny had been watching you closely after he had suggested the use of the RV, and your response must have been the correct one in his eyes if the look on his face was anything to go by. “You’re damn right. I knew you were smart, (Y/n). It’s good you’re helping look out for that young girl as well. My boy speaks highly of you, and I wanted to thank you for listenin’ to his yammering. He can be a little much sometimes, but he means well. And it means a lot to me that you’ve been good to my family.”

“Of course, Kenny,” you smiled at him kindly. “You guys are good people, and I’m glad that you’ve been able to stick together during this whole thing.”

“How about you?” You gave him an odd look, so he clarified, “You got any family out there somewhere?”

“Ah, not really. Nowhere near, anyway, so there’s no way to get to them.” It was kind of the truth; any of your family was probably safe back in the real world - or, at least, you hoped that was the case. For a fleeting moment you wondered if they had any idea what happened to you, or if you had disappeared or something, but you pushed that aside for the moment. “Just my friends here that are my family now, I suppose. For as rag-tag of a family as we can be, it’s a lot better than trying to make it alone.”

Kenny bobbed his head up and down thoughtfully. “I can get behind that. Sorry to hear about your family. I’m glad you’ve found your own kind of family here though - family is what’s most important, especially in times like these.”

You weren’t given a chance to think of a response to Kenny when a foreign noise tainted the usual background ambience that you had all grown accustomed to. The reaction was immediate. You and Kenny both tensed and tilted one ear to the sky as you concentrated on figuring out what the strange sound was and where it was originating from. Any noise that other members of your group had been making ceased as they tuned in as well.

It was getting louder, and you belatedly realized that it was the sound of some type of aircraft. You hadn’t heard their signature whirring as they soared through the air since you had gotten into the game, seeing as the world had fallen apart and there likely weren’t any commercial flights going on anymore. Once you had determined what the cause of the sound was, you turned your eyes skyward to search for the culprit.

“There!” someone shouted, and you twisted to see Ethan pointing a finger in the distance. You followed the trail he directed and your attention landed on a helicopter careening through the air. Its path was unsteady, and it looked like it was losing altitude faster than was probably safe. “It looks like it’s crashing!”

Sure enough, the stuttered chopping of the helicopter’s blades then spluttered to a halt, and the aircraft’s previously somewhat controlled descent plunged into chaotic spinning. Everybody watched in horrified awe as it disappeared from sight. After long moments of bated silence, a distant crash could be heard.

“That was headed in the direction of Macon,” Doug said from where he was positioned on top of the RV. He simultaneously was addressing everyone and no one with the ambiguity of his observation.

“We should check it out,” Kenny announced, stepping away from where he had been standing beside you to be more in the centre of the parking lot.

“I don’t know,” Lee chimed in. “That would have made an awful lot of noise. There’ll be walkers crawling towards it from miles away. Maybe we should wait a couple days before going to scout it out.”

“Did you see what type of chopper it was?” Kenny asked. Nobody responded, so he went on. “It was military. They might be packing some heat - we could use some more firepower here - or it might have had other supplies onboard, like medical or food provisions.”

“Okay, sure,” Lee acquiesced, arms crossed, “but why not wait a day or two? If there were supplies, they won’t be going anywhere in a hurry with the helicopter down. Why risk running into walkers when we can wait until things calm down?”

Kenny’s answer was instantaneous, like he had expected this reasoning to cause resistance from others. "We might not be the only ones that heard and saw that crash. Other survivors could have the same idea as us. If we take a small enough group, we can get in and out of there as quickly as possible, avoiding any other people. We can handle the dead if we’re smart.”

“It would be putting our people in danger for the possibility that there _might_ be supplies.” Lilly had finally joined the conversation. Her arms were crossed over her chest and her eyebrows were furrowed in disapproval of Kenny’s suggestion. “We have food and weapons, we don’t need to put so much at risk for something like this.”

“Our food situation is doing a lot better with what you guys brought back from the commissary, but I don’t know what weapons you’re talking about,” Kenny rebutted, voice tinged with a condescending undertone. “We only have one pistol and whatever knives or other shit we can use to fight off walkers. What happens when we run into a situation that we can’t rely on stabbing a screwdriver into every enemy? Guns can make all the difference between life and death, and I don’t like our odds right now.”

“Kenny has a point,” Ken spoke up from where he was standing, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as the focus was drawn to him. “It could be dangerous, but we do need more guns. If this helicopter has a chance of having some, I say we go for it.”

Larry grumbled from where he was leaning up against a post. “It’s a stupid risk,” he growled, unable to keep himself from voicing his own opinion without insults involved. “We can find guns without going to such a high risk location.”

“And where exactly do you propose we do that? We can judge how much of a risk it is, and if we think it's too risky we can search another part of town away from the crash for supplies so that the trip isn't wasted. I’m going to check out this copter,” Kenny proclaimed defiantly, jutting his chin upward in a defiant motion. “You don’t have to like it, and you sure as hell don’t have to come, but I am getting those guns so that I can protect my family, damn it.”

“Kenny…” Katjaa sounded and looked worried, not liking the idea of her husband putting herself in such a dangerous situation.

“Who else?” Kenny asked, peering around at the rest of the group. “The group should be small, but at least two or three others would be ideal.”

“I’m in,” Ken decided, stepping forward and nodding to Kenny, who returned the gesture with respect.

“Fuck it,” Ethan shrugged, but you could tell that he was nervous. “It needs to get done, and I haven’t been on a run in a while. I’ll take my turn to pull my weight.” Kenny patted him on the shoulder in thanks when the younger man walked over to stand beside him and Ken.

Nobody else made any move to volunteer, uneasiness hanging thick in the air. Katjaa was too valuable with her veterinary skills to risk out in the field too much, Cry was still out of commission from his healing injury, and Lilly and Larry had made it clear where they stood on the issue. Mark was unaware of the situation, seeing as he was tucked away in his room to catch up on sleep from taking the night watch, and Felix was avoiding making eye contact with Kenny, waves of discomfort emanating off of him. Doug was known not to do well around walkers, so he often wasn’t expected on higher risk missions, and Middleton was still new enough to the group that he wouldn’t be trusted with such a mission.

“Lee?” Kenny asked. Lee debated it for a moment, but then shook his head, hand coming up to rest on Clementine’s shoulder. Kenny understood what the motion meant and there was no contempt in his eyes as he accepted it. He knew that Clem was Lee’s family now, and that he was hesitant to leave the girl for such a dangerous mission. “(Y/n)?” You were surprised to have him address you next; you hadn’t expected him to specifically ask you to come. “I know I could trust you to have my back out there. Are you in?”

“I-” 

You paused, unsure. This was another instance that you didn’t know what to expect from the situation, and that was daunting. But at the same time you didn’t want to let Kenny or the others down and could see the reason he wanted to go so badly. He had also singled you out right after Lee, which showed just how much Kenny had faith in you. Leaving the three of them to handle it on their own didn’t sit well with you either, even if joining the expedition did make an uncomfortable ball of anxiety well up in your chest.

“Yeah, okay, I’ll come,” you decided before you could give yourself the chance to overthink and second-guess yourself.

“Wha- (Y/n), you can’t be serious!” Cry protested, staring at you with his mouth agape in shock. “This is dangerous, you could get hurt!”

“She can handle herself,” Kenny responded, also giving you a clap on the shoulder as you joined his small team. You shot Cry an apologetic glance, but then dropped your gaze without taking back your choice. “We should head out right away. We’ll take the pistol with us and head out in the truck.”

“This is a bad idea,” Lilly objected, but went to retrieve the gun nonetheless, recognizing that Kenny wasn’t going to be argued with on this one. 

Kenny had been one of the people that had found Carley’s abandoned gun (and ammo) on a search of the drugstore a few days prior, so Lilly had no higher claim on the gun than he did. You hadn’t been on that run, but Lee had, and he had been visibly shaken upon return to the motel. You weren’t sure if Carley’s remains had been there, or if there had been enough left of her to turn and wander off as another walker, but you were sure the reminder of his choice to save Doug costing Carley her life weighed heavily on the game’s protagonist.

While waiting for Lilly to get the gun, Kenny went to talk to his family while Ken and Ethan went to grab the usual backpacks that were taken on runs. You found yourself approached by Lee, Clementine, and Cry. Clementine was the first to act, hugging you tightly, her unspoken concern for your safety apparent. Lee also regarded you with worry in his deep brown eyes, but it was Cry who actually spoke first.

“I don’t know why you agreed to go, and I know Kenny is right that you can handle yourself, but… God, just, _be careful_. We don’t know what to expect, and I don’t like not being able to come and make sure nothing goes wrong.”

“Yeah, like that worked out for you last time,” you jested, lightly poking the scab on Cry’s jaw.

“Hey, better me than you,” he replied. “I’m serious though; don’t take any more risks than you have to.”

“Cry’s right, (Y/n),” Lee added. “Kenny means well, but… If it’s too dangerous, make him back off. His emotions get in the way sometimes, but that doesn’t mean that other people have to be put at risk because of it.”

“And be back for bedtime.” Clementine’s voice was muffled from her talking into where her face was pressed up against your side, but she was still easily understandable. You understood that it was her way of asking you to come back safely, bedtime being a reminder of the special bond forged around the storytelling routine.

You rubbed soothing circles into her back and reassured her, “Macon is pretty close, we should be back before dark.” Then, addressing Cry and Lee, you continued, “I’ll be careful. Ken and Ethan will have my back as well, so we should be able to keep Kenny’s decisions reasonable.”

“(Y/n)! We’re leaving, let’s go!” Kenny’s voice carried over to you from where he had taken up his place in the driver’s seat of the truck. Ken was in the passenger’s seat and Ethan was waiting in the back with the door open for you to join him.

You said a quick farewell to the three around you, and surprised yourself by actually hugging all of them in turn. Lee seemed the most shocked by your action, but returned the hug regardless, which made your heart feel warm. Then you jogged over to the truck and hopped in the back seat. The sun was still high in the sky, and you were confident that you would be back at the motor inn before sundown.

* * *

With the intimation that the noise from the helicopter crash would likely mean more walker activity in Macon, Kenny was very cautious upon entering the town. It was a difficult balance to strike - you didn’t want to park the truck too far away that it would be an issue to get back to it if things went awry, but you also didn’t want to have the truck get swarmed if you brought it too close to the action. When walkers could be spotted an intersection away, Kenny pulled a U-turn to be facing back the way you had come from and turned off the truck. You were only a few blocks away from where dark smoke was billowing up into the sky, indicating where the helicopter had landed.

The four of you got out of the truck and grouped together on the sidewalk, glancing around nervously to watch out for any danger nearby. It was then that you recognized the familiarity of the area and could have laughed at how predictable it was. _Of course_ it would be near the street with Everett’s drugstore. Did anything happen in Macon that wasn’t in the general vicinity of that pivotal setting of the video game?

“We shouldn’t go in blind,” Ken whispered, jerking his head in the direction that you were going to be headed in. “I say we try to find somewhere that we can scope things out from a bit of a distance. Like a building across the street or something.”

The rest of you agreed with Ken’s assessment, and kept a street to the side of where the smoke was in order to avoid the majority of the walkers as you got closer to your target. There were still more than usual milling about, but your group was well-equipped to dispatch them quietly and efficiently. Eventually there was a building that seemed tall enough to get a good vantage point from that was directly in front of where the pillar of smoke was. After finding the back door locked and seeing that there was no gap between the building and its neighbours, the four of you searched for a different solution.

It was Ethan that gestured upwards, spotting the fire escape that the structure had at the back. The ladder portion of the stairwell that connected to the ground had been lowered, but a car must have collided with it during the chaos of the outbreak, and it was now disconnected and laying several feet away from where it was meant to be. This posed the challenge of finding a new way up.

“Okay, here’s what I’m thinking,” Kenny started instructing in a hushed whisper. “We send two of us up there to get an idea of what we’re up against, and keep two down on the ground that’ll be waiting to be sent in. When the two up top have a game plan, they relay it to the two waiting down here, and then watch their backs when they go to check out the chopper.”

Since Ethan was one of the smallest, he was the easiest to boost up to grab a hold of the metal landing of the fire escape and pull himself the rest of the way up. Then, being the main strategist, Kenny was deemed to be the second one boosted up. He was heavier than Ethan, and there was only you and Ken to support him from the ground, but there was faster relief available as Ethan reached down to help haul Kenny up as well. 

You and Ken were left to defend yourselves against any walkers that stumbled upon your path (which, thankfully, wasn’t too many, the main attention being concentrated one street over because of the helicopter crash) while waiting for Kenny and Ethan to climb up to the roof of the building. To pass the time, Ken started up a joking game of rock-paper-scissors, though you both remained vigilant, aware of the constant danger that was always waiting just around the corner.

Finally the tinny sound of footsteps on the metal fire escape came from above you, and you looked up to see Ethan preparing to hop down to the ground. You and Ken backed up to give him some space, and the young YouTuber dropped down, landing in a crouch and wincing at the shock his knees absorbed from hitting the pavement. Both you and Ken looked at him expectantly, waiting for any word on how you were going to proceed.

“It’s a mess out there,” Ethan indulged, glancing back upwards to where his previous vantage point of their target street had been. “The helicopter landed on top of Everett’s Prescriptions, and it looks like other military people beat us here, judging by the jeep out in front of the store. No living in sight, just walkers swarming the streets, so Kenny's trying to think of a way to get us past them without drawing any attention to ourselves. His plan so far is to have the two people on the ground to go for speed rather than strength - so he’s thinking you and me, (Y/n) - and he wants to make sure we have the person with the pistol on the roof to be watching them from up high. He’s still not sure if he wants two people stationed up top, or if he’ll find another use for the fourth person.”

“I can take the pistol.” Both of you looked at Ken, hearing the confidence he had in volunteering himself. “I know how to shoot well,” he explained, then added airily, “Y’know, ‘Murica and all that.”

“Well, alright,” you shrugged, not sure what other kind of response to give. “Here, we’ll try to hoist you up.”

It was more of a struggle without the third person waiting above to help out, but you and Ethan managed to hold Ken up long enough for him to get a sturdy grip on the lower landing and start to pull himself the rest of the way up. You and Ethan were then left on the ground, once again remaining vigilant for straggling walkers. 

While you were standing there, eyes scanning around the area cautiously, the entire ground suddenly rattled beneath you and you stumbled slightly, arms flailing out to help regain your balance. You automatically looked over to Ethan with your mouth already open to ask about the strange happenstance, but you found that he wasn’t even looking in your direction. His eyes were trained away from where you were standing and he appeared as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

“Did you just feel that?” You asked, a hint of incredulity in your voice as you wondered why the hell Ethan hadn’t reacted similarly to you.

“Feel what?” Ethan’s one eyebrow was raised, and you gawked at his obliviousness. “Uh, (Y/n)?” he prompted when you failed to answer him.

“What do you mean, ‘feel what?’ - the whole ground shook!”

Both of Ethan’s brows furrowed downwards and he tilted his head at you, some concern on his features. “I didn’t feel anything… Are you sure? Maybe you just, I dunno, lost your balance for a second.” The proposal sounded more like a question than anything. “I mean, there were no noises either, so it wasn’t the helicopter shifting and shaking the ground or anything either.”

You knew that wasn’t the case, that the ground really had trembled beneath you somehow, but had no other possible explanation, so you sheepishly murmured, “Yeah, maybe.”

It was another few long moments before Kenny came out to tell you what he had in mind for a plan.

You were going to need to loop back the way you came in order to approach the store from a different street, as access to where you currently were was blocked off unfortunately. To try and lure away at least some of the walkers that were shambling around out in front of the drugstore, Kenny was going to go across the rooftops and create a distraction a small distance away, giving you and Ethan the window to slip onto the street without there being too many walkers in the way. 

Once on the street, you were going to have to move fast, because Kenny couldn’t guarantee how long he would be able to keep the dead away from you without putting himself in danger. He told you that there was a transport truck that was abandoned across the road just outside the pharmacy (part of what was blocking your access to the store from closer to your current street), but it seemed like it could provide a path to the helicopter on the roof.

The roof, however, was now partially collapsed from catching the aircraft when it had fallen from the sky, and would require delicacy in navigating. This was another reason Kenny wanted it to be you and Ethan doing this portion of the mission - he trusted the two of you to be the most agile of the group, and therefore the best equipped to handle manoeuvring the wreck. 

So, just as instructed, you and Ethan positioned yourselves around to the street on the other side of where the pharmacy was located and signalled to Ken on top of the building with the decrepit “Electronics Warehouse” sign when you were ready to proceed. He went on to signal to Kenny where he was set up.

Ethan let out a deep breath from beside you, steadying himself. “Alright, we got this.” You were unsure if he was talking to you or himself, but responded with a whispered verbal confirmation anyway. Nothing wrong with boosting morale before a potentially perilous commission.

The sound of two solid objects being bashed together infiltrated the air, and you watched as the walkers grew intrigued and shambled away from your destination. Whatever Kenny was doing to make a distraction was working so far. 

Not wanting to waste any time, you moved forward in a crouch even while there were still walkers in sight at the end of the street. Their focus remained on the source of the ruckus, but it was still disquieting to be approaching the rancid creatures that you knew to be violent and fatal to encounter. You usually did everything you could to avoid them, not get closer to them. You took solace in knowing that Ken was covering your backs from on top of the Electronics Warehouse, but you still scarcely breathed as you crouched behind an abandoned car in wait for the last few walkers to get a little bit farther from where you and Ethan needed to cross.

When you saw an opening, the two of you bolted out from behind your cover and raced over to the transport truck that Kenny had told you about. An old, rusted ladder hung off the side of the trailer towards the back, and your companion ushered you to climb it first. He followed you up, practically on your heels in his anxiety to reach a safer position than the street.

When Kenny, who you could see on the roof of an old furniture outlet store, spotted that you and Ethan had made it to a secure place, he stopped bashing the metal rooftop HVAC unit with what appeared to be a stray plank of wood. He stepped away from the sight line of the walkers clamouring below and crouched down to watch you and Ethan progress forward in your task.

Steeling your resolve, you pushed on and clambered up the small distance between the roof of the truck’s trailer and the thin ledge of the roof that was left of the pharmacy building connected to that side. The helicopter had caused quite extensive damage to the integrity of the ceiling, and to your distress you saw that much of the roof had collapsed at the front half of the building. Only a few of the supporting beam structures remained to hold the aircraft aloft. You could see down into the store and witness the damage chunks of concrete falling in had caused. Funnily enough, they fell in such a way that it actually managed to better fortify the interior of the store from the threat of walkers outside.

Not that that helped you at all in your current situation.

“Shit. Doesn’t look very sturdy,” Ethan said, trepidation apparent in his voice. 

“Yeah, and look at how it’s positioned,” you pointed out. “The front half is barely supported; too much weight, and it looks like it’ll teeter over down into the store.”

Ethan considered this for a moment, then finally asked, “So only one of us should go in, right? It’s too risky to have both of us try it.”

You didn’t answer, but you both knew he was correct. Even if going forth alone wasn’t necessarily ideal, sending two people to search the cockpit of the chopper was less favourable given the condition of the building it was resting on. The main issue was just deciding who would be the one to risk their life, and who was willing to stay behind and watch helplessly.

“Fuck,” Ethan cursed shakily under his breath. “I’ll do it; I used to do gymnastics, so maybe I’ll have more control if things start to go wrong. Maybe.”

“Are you sure? I would do it, if you aren’t sure about it.” Ethan shook his head at your offer, eyes resolute. “Alright. Be careful though, man. I’ll stand as close as I can, just in case it gets unstable and you need me.”

You cautiously made your way across the roof, testing each step before putting your full weight behind it. The first objective was to make it to the portion of the roof that was more intact, then approach your target from there. It was a tedious process to have to be wary of every single step you took, and there were a couple of heart-pounding moments where the concrete beneath your foot would crumble, but eventually you made it, Ethan right behind you.

For getting to the helicopter, Ethan led the way, and you were able to move a bit faster and were more sure of your footing on the less collapsed part of the roof. When you were still a few feet away from where the roof started to cave in with the weight of the helicopter, Ethan threw his hand back behind him as a signal for you to halt. You followed his sign and were stuck watching as he continued to creep forward.

He shot you one last glance before he carefully reached forward and opened the side door to the cockpit. The hinges creaked from the damage they endured in the crash, but the door still opened. Ethan placed his foot on the edge of the floor in the copter and tested to see if it would hold his weight.

“I think it’s gonna hold,” he called back to you. “The pilot’s in here, but I can’t tell if he’s just knocked out or…” He didn’t need to finish his sentence for you to understand the other possibility. “He hasn’t turned yet, at least. I’m gonna leave him for now - I don’t want to jerk around too much in here, it might shift the whole thing.”

That made an uneasy pit form in your stomach and you couldn’t help yourself from shuffling forward another few steps, careful to be aware of the strength of the ground beneath you. You were only satisfied with your position when you could see the pilot that Ethan had mentioned. If you couldn’t be right in the helicopter with your friend, you could at least watch his back and give him some forewarning if the pilot was going to be a problem.

Ethan was right about him being in rough shape; although a good portion of his face was covered by his helmet and visor, there was a thick trail of blood that ran down his face from an unknown head injury. The front window was shattered, and you wondered if he had been rammed into when he had crashed. His seat belt was still on, so he didn’t get ejected at least. Not that it seemed to have helped him very much. There was no sign of a co-pilot.

Ethan’s voice brought you back to the present. “There’s not much back here,” he told you from wherever he was in the area behind the pilots’ seats. “Like, really not much. Mostly empty packages of food and no guns, but there was a first aid kit strapped to the wall. And a couple of ration bars I guess.”

“Maybe this wasn’t as much of a rescue mission as it was just someone trying to get away,” you speculated out loud, voice raised enough so that Ethan would be able to hear you. “Escape into the air for as long as possible, stay out of reach from the walkers. Works until something goes wrong. Sure, you can make it for a bit, but what about when your engine overheats or you run out of gas?”

“This happens, apparently.” Ethan came back into view and paused to give you a short wave, but then turned his attention to the pilot. “Oh sick, he’s got a pistol on him.”

As Ethan reached for the gun, a rattling gasp came from the pilot and his body suddenly jerked forward in his seat, as though waking from a bad dream. Ethan swore and reflexively jumped backwards, body going rigid when the entire helicopter moved and the roof holding it up groaned.

“Ethan!” you shouted in fear, taking a step forward only to be halted by the reminder that the ground you were on was unstable as well. 

He was extremely pale, his arms held out for balance as he clenched his jaw and tried not to move a muscle. His eyes darted over to you, then to the edge of the roof that he could escape onto, then to the pilot. You could practically see the gears spinning in his head as he frantically tried to come up with a plan.

The pilot in front of him coughed, awful hacking wheezes that sounded disturbingly wet. Although you didn’t have a medical degree, the image of broken ribs puncturing lungs entered your mind and you shuddered. When his coughing fit subsided, he started clawing at his seat belt in desperation, an involuntary whine coming from his throat.

“Please… please help me,” he croaked. When Ethan remained frozen, the man reached forward to him, begging, “Please!” His fumbling fingers managed to release the clip of his belt, and he slumped forward into the console, not being prepared to support his own weight.

The helicopter lurched forward again ever so slightly, but you could hear a faint screeching of metal scraping against concrete that continued past the visible movement of the aircraft. It was slowly starting to fall forward you realized, and soon wouldn’t be able to be held up by the ceiling of the pharmacy.

“Ethan, you gotta get out of there! It’s falling!” you warned him, fear colouring your words. “We can’t help him!”

Ethan didn’t hesitate; he forewent any slow movements and instead went for speed. His first step towards the exit caused the helicopter to jolt and drop another few inches, and his second step to launch himself from the edge of the doorway onto the roof got him clear of the deathtrap just in time. The structure holding it aloft let out a tremendous moan and gave out, and the helicopter fell forwards, nose meeting the floor with an almighty crash. The tail of the helicopter remained above the roof.

Ethan had landed prone on the unstable concrete in front of you, and when the helicopter went down, it pulled the edges of the roof around it down as well, taking the ground out from beneath his legs and leaving him dangling. When he had jumped, he had thrown something that had been in his hand and it landed somewhere behind you on, skittering across the ground. You paid it no mind as you focused on the precarious position of your friend.

His hands scrambled for better purchase and the petrified pallor of his face had you rushing forward to meet him halfway. You got yourself into a sturdy crouching stance to give yourself the best leverage and extended your hand to him. Ethan clasped onto it like a lifeline and you leaned backwards to help him as he worked with you to get up and away from the gaping hole that dropped into the drugstore.

Both of you clambered back to more stable ground and panted heavily at the close call. You looked up and saw Ken across the street, almost hanging over the edge of the rooftop as he watched the intense series of events. You raised a trembling hand to give him a thumbs-up and watched as he stepped back in relief at knowing you were both okay.

“The noise brought the walkers back to you!” Ken called out over the distance. “We’ll have to meet you guys back at the truck!”

The building rumbled beneath you again as the helicopter settled and you exchanged a nervous look with Ethan. You needed to move. There was no telling how long the rest of the roof would hold up, or if it was safe to be on it at all anymore. Ethan got up on wobbly knees and made it over to where the object he had thrown earlier had ended up.

“You got the gun?” you asked in amazement when he turned around holding the pilot’s firearm triumphantly.

“Yep,” Ethan popped the ‘p’ in the word, “I got a hold of it just before the guy woke up.” At the reminder of the pilot, both of you glanced back at where the helicopter had sank down into the store. “I feel bad that I couldn’t help him, but…”

“There was nothing you could’ve done,” you finished for him, getting to your feet to join him. “It’s awful, but even if you could get him out, I don’t know if he would have survived. His coughing did not sound good.”

“Yeah… We should get moving. Let’s see if we can find a way down on this side of the building.”

The building was too tall to comfortably jump down to the pavement, but luckily there was a dumpster in the alleyway that would serve to bridge the distance. You lowered yourself over the edge of the building, holding on with your fingertips, then dropped onto the lid of the dumpster, cringing at the bang that sounded upon impact. There were a couple of walkers in the alley that had been roused by the racket of the collapsing roof, but the arrival of fresh meat took precedence and they redirected themselves towards you.

You heard Ethan dropping onto the dumpster after you as you touched down on the pavement and readied your crowbar. You kicked the first walker in the knee to stagger it and quickly followed up with jabbing your weapon through its eye socket to kill it. While you yanked your crowbar back out, Ethan distracted the second walker to leave you free to dispatch the third. You took it out swiftly, then turned to help Ethan with the last one. 

You had forgotten that he didn’t have a melee weapon on him, coming in with Lee and his group, and he was smart enough not to fire a gun while in town, which left him with few options. In that sense, you guessed it was lucky that you and Cry had been as fortunate with your findings originally that allowed you to spare a couple of knives for Felix and Ken to have. You pierced the walker’s skull from behind, freeing Ethan from its attempts to chomp him.

“C’mon,” you beckoned needlessly, moving to the edge of the alley to peek out around the corner.

The majority of walkers were clustered on the street in front of the drugstore, pushing up against the fallen concrete in an attempt to breach the inside and investigate the source of the loudness from a few moments earlier. It was good that their focus was drawn to one particular target, but you knew to keep your guard up for any incoming walkers that would be late getting to the party.

Thankfully you were able to flee the street without any major incident, keeping to the sides and staying low in case you came across any walkers. At first you felt a bit disoriented and forgot where you had to go to get back to the rendezvous point, but you and Ethan managed to put your heads together and figure it out relatively fast. It wasn’t too far away; you and Ethan were closer to it than Ken or Kenny would be, so you’d likely have to wait there for them.

You rounded the last corner ahead of your companion, crowbar up in preparation for any walkers milling about. There were only two loitering on the street, so you went to take care of them quickly, leaving Ethan free to head for the truck. It was as you stabbed the second walker that you heard Ethan let out a yelp. You whipped around, worried that you hadn’t accounted for a third walker and left Ethan in trouble, but what you saw was much worse.

Ethan’s head was being forcefully pulled backwards by a harsh hand gripping his hair painfully, evident by the grimace on his face. The man holding Ethan captive had a knife pressed firmly against his neck, the tip of it already breaking through the skin and drawing a few droplets of blood to roll down and soak into the American YouTuber’s shirt. Ethan’s gun had been knocked out of his hand and onto the ground beside his foot.

Even if you thought you might be able to get to the man before he could kill Ethan, his two other companions holding rifles trained on you would be able to hit you before you made it three steps. You shifted your weight, not leaving your fighting stance, but unsure of what to do next.

“Drop it, missy,” the raspy voice of the knife wielding man commanded. “Unless you want your friend’s neck split wide open and a bullet in your pretty little head.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've gotten back into Neopets and i forgot how much i loved that game in my childhood. but also my rekindled obsession has meant that i get distracted from writing more often than i should, rip in peace.


	16. [Sixteen]

“Are you deaf, girl? Or just stupid?” the man growled when you didn’t react fast enough for his liking. He pressed his knife harder against Ethan’s throat and the young man whimpered ever so slightly as a steadier stream of blood began to trickle down his neck. “Drop your weapon and put your hands behind your head. I don’t like repeating myself.”

Seeing no other alternative available, you did as he said, your crowbar falling with a metallic clank against the asphalt. You slowly raised your hands and placed them behind your head, the pounding of blood rushing through your ears threatening to drown out everything else. This was a messy predicament to find yourself in, and you desperately tried to brainstorm any way you could salvage the situation.

“Phil, go pat her down and make sure she ain’t got tricks up her sleeves,” the man holding Ethan ordered. He must have been the one in charge because one of the men with the hunting rifles immediately followed his instructions. “Jordan, keep your gun trained on her so she doesn’t get any smart ideas.”

When the man - Phil, according to the leader - was standing in front of you, he gave your entire figure a once over. You refused to shy away from his gaze and, if you weren’t mistaken, you saw his grin grow wider at your defiance and the anger simmering behind your irises. 

Phil’s appearance was scruffy, and living in the apocalypse aged everyone, but he looked to be in his late thirties if you had to take a guess. His hair was matted over his forehead and his beard was pretty scraggly. His smell was what got to you the most though. He reeked of alcohol, and you couldn’t tell if he was currently intoxicated or if it was a lingering scent. Your nose wrinkled in disgust as he got close to you in order to pat you down in search for weapons.

When you tore your eyes away from him to examine his accomplices, you saw that they were in a similar state of dishevelment. The other man with a rifle - Jordan - had hair that went to his shoulders, but wore a dirty hat, and the leader had a bandana tied across his forehead. The leader was relentless with his hold on Ethan and you could see the amount of discomfort your friend was in.

Phil’s hand then strayed from its path and found its way to your rear, squeezing your bum in his palm and causing you to shove him away from you automatically. You were seething at the audacity of him, and your anger was only fuelled when you saw an infuriating smirk stretch across his chapped lips, exposing yellowing teeth.

“Don’t _fucking_ touch me,” you snarled, fists clenched and nails digging into your palms.

“Ah ah ah,” the leader scolded you in the patronizing way that a three-year-old would receive upon touching something off-limits. “Phil was just being thorough, no need to get so upset. Be a dear and play nice, won’t you?” To emphasize his question, he yanked Ethan’s head back harder and earned a pained gasp from the YouTuber.

You bit your tongue and forced your fingers to unfurl, though your entire body remained rigid. You wanted nothing more than to deck the disgusting man in front of you right in the nose. If Ethan’s life weren’t at stake, you might have even taken the chance to do just that, regardless of the fact that there was a gun pointed at you.

“What’s your name, doll?” Phil asked, stepping closer to you again, confident that you wouldn’t act out a second time. His voice was higher pitched than you expected from his appearance, and slightly nasally. Perhaps he was still recovering from a broken nose and the crick that was in the bridge of his naval cavity was a recent addition. You would gladly re-break it for him.

Your eyes flickered to Ethan briefly and you reluctantly bit out through clenched teeth, "(Y/n)." You’d have to pick your battles if you didn’t want Ethan to get hurt for your uncooperativeness. Another repulsive smile settled on Phil’s face at your compliance, and he got bold again.

When he leaned down and his hands connected with your body again, it was at your hips. He slowly started to drag them upwards, headed towards your chest. Damning the consequences, you jerked your head up and the crown of your skull connected with the underside of his jaw, sending him stumbling backwards.

Out of the corner of your eye you saw Jordan raise his gun and you prepared to dive to the ground to avoid a bullet, but Phil held a hand up to him, the other one holding his jaw. He stood back up to his full height and narrowed his eyes at you.

“Fuckin’ bitch,” he spat, right before he backhanded you across the face and sent you reeling.

Everything spun around you for a few seconds, and the stinging in your right cheek caused tears to spring to your eyes and further blur your vision. Phil’s dark figure came towards you again and you hastily backed away, almost stumbling over your own feet.

“Phil.” The voice of their leader was authoritative and Phil’s unfocused outline stopped in its tracks. “Jordan, come keep our other friend occupied for me. It seems that (Y/n) is the more troublesome of the two and needs to be taught some basic manners.”

You took this opportunity to wipe the tears from your ears and clear up your vision so that you could see what was happening. The world came back into focus in time for you to watch Ethan be transferred none-too-gently to Jordan’s hands, a different knife against his neck to dissuade him from trying anything. Jordan’s rifle was propped up against the truck that he and Ethan stood near. 

Bandana Leader Man wiped the droplets of Ethan’s blood from his blade off on his jeans as he ambled his way over to you, seemingly without a care in the world. He knew that he was in control of the situation. 

_Cocky bastard_ , you thought to yourself bitterly while unable to do anything about it. You squared your shoulders and faced him head-on, staring him down to the best of your ability with your right eye squinting slightly from the swelling that was already starting in your cheek. Phil did not hold back when he hit you. 

Bandana stopped on the edge of your personal space and met your angry gaze with his own impassive one. Phil stood off to the side, glowering at you menacingly. The leader observed you silently for a moment longer before a humourless chuckle came from him.

“How rude of me,” he drawled, sarcasm thick. “Here I am talking about bad manners when I haven’t even introduced myself. The name’s Benny. Me and my boys have a camp not too far from here, and we were coming over to check out that helicopter crash when we saw you two sneaking about, coming from that very direction. Now, you wouldn’t happen to have been visiting that copter, would ya? ‘Cause we may just have a problem if that’s the case.”

Instead of answering him, you continued to glare at him while stubbornly keeping your mouth shut. Benny was not pleased with your lack of response.

“I knew women like you back before all this shit went down. Oh boy, did I ever want to knock them off their high-horses and put them back in their place. Listen closely, darling: you ain’t shit. I have more boys back at camp that haven’t had female company in quite a while. I bet they’d love to get their hands on a little spitfire like you. Trust me, girl, it’s in your best interest to cooperate.”

“Fuck you,” you snapped, not having any of his bullshit.

Benny moved before you could react, striking your abdomen with his boot aggressively and knocking the wind out of you. You were sent sprawling onto the rough pavement, the rocks digging into any exposed flesh that rubbed against it. You gasped for breath, but found yourself unable to inhale anything. You curled inwards to nurse the source of the pain, but you were met with another brutal kick to the ribs before you could shield yourself properly. Stars danced before your eyes at the new wave of pain and you didn’t realize that there were tear tracks running down your face until you tasted salt on your lips.

“No! Please, stop!” Ethan’s panicked voice was shouting from somewhere ahead of you, but you couldn’t get your eyesight to make sense of any of the lights or colours near you. “We didn’t find anything good in there! Only a pistol and a medkit.”

To your relief, no more boots struck you and you were afforded a moment to gather yourself. The pain caused confusion, but you pushed through it to come back to the present and make sense of what was going on.

You and Ethan were ambushed. Ethan was at knifepoint. They had guns, you didn’t. You were defiant and they lashed out at you. You were on the ground because of that. There was pain, but the danger wasn’t gone yet. You needed to focus.

You whimpered at how movement agitated your entire abdomen, but managed to push yourself into a kneeling position before a heavy hand rested on your shoulder and kept you there. You raised your eyes to see Benny standing over you, a cold smile on his face that didn’t reach his eyes.

“See? That wasn’t so hard, was it, doll? It was a simple question.”

“I think I like her in that position,” the man named Phil sneered, a dark look in his eyes.

You didn’t dignify him with a response, instead keeping your attention on Benny. He didn’t acknowledge Phil’s comment either, but he did tighten his hold on your shoulder to an uncomfortable pressure.

“We have a bit of an issue here then, if what your friend says is true,” he said lowly. “Y’see, we came _all this way_ for supplies, only for you to tell us there’s nothing here for us. That ain’t gonna sit well with the fellas back home, so we’re gonna have to come up with a solution.”

The way he was looking at you made you feel sick, and you knew that you weren’t going to like the next words that came out of his mouth.

“That wasn’t an empty threat earlier - the men back at camp would be more than happy to see a young thing like you dragged back with us. Might even make up for the lack of other supplies if I can promise that they all get a turn with you. And we even get a truck out of the deal, now there’s a bonus,” he said, and you found yourself being pulled to your feet. You went to struggle, but Benny simply adjusted his grip on you to be around your neck and continued to drag you in a chokehold despite you trying to claw at his arms. “And after what you did to poor Phil earlier, he’ll surely get first dibs. I think you owe him that much.”

You could hear Ethan yelling something, but his words were cut short with a strangled noise from him. You weren’t faring much better; Benny’s arm was wrapped around your neck tightly enough that you felt like your oxygen supply was getting more and more limited.

You didn’t know what you could do. No matter how hard you fought, Benny’s hold wouldn’t loosen, and he was overpowering your attempts to plant your feet to stop his path to the truck as well. The edges of your vision were darkening and you started to hallucinate a faint beeping sound. It was strangely ominous, like the steady ticking of a clock reminding you that time was running out.

“Kill him, we only need the girl,” Benny ordered.

A new panic constricted your chest and you fought with renewed vigour, desperate to stop these men from killing your friend. You heard what sounded like a scuffle then a body hitting the ground and Ethan crying out in pain and begging for his captor not to do it. You didn’t realize you had been yelling until Benny flexed his arm to crush your windpipe and forcibly stop you.

A gunshot echoed and your mind went blank.

_Ethan!_

The reaction from Benny wasn’t at all what you expected. He whipped around - taking you along for the ride by default - fast enough to make your head spin and shouted, “Jordan!”

At first you thought he was mad that Jordan had used a gun to kill Ethan, creating too much noise, but then another shot went off and you were bewildered as to why they would shoot twice. Had they somehow missed the first time?

The next thing you knew, Benny’s chest was against your back and he had you suspended a bit above the ground because of his height as he dug something sharp against your neck. He was walking backwards now, but still towards the truck. You kicked your feet out to try and find any purchase to stabalize yourself and get some distance between the blade and your skin, but it was no use; Benny was holding you just high enough that you couldn't reach the ground with more than just the tips of your boots.

“Don’t fucking move!” he shouted, and you finally could see what had happened. “Come any closer and she’s dead!”

Ken stood down the street with a pistol raised, its barrel directed right at you. Well, at Benny, but you were being used as a human shield. You looked to your side and saw Phil and Jordan, both writhing on the ground with blood seeping out of their chests and into their clothes.

A guttural scream came from behind you, and your entire world jolted sideways as Ethan tackled Benny in an animalistic rage. The shock of the hit made your captor release you and you were able to scramble out of his reach. Unfortunately he recovered before Ethan and climbed on top of the younger boy and began to crush his throat under his palms.

A third shot rang out and you watched as dark red blossomed out from the new hole in Benny’s upper chest. The man didn’t seem to know what had just happened at first, and he kept his pressure on Ethan’s neck, but then he wavered and was visibly puzzled. He coughed, blood dribbling out from his lips, and Ethan was able to shove him sideways and off of himself.

He made eye contact with you as he gurgled on his own blood, the thick substance filling his lungs from the rupture the bullet had caused. You couldn’t muster up any remorse for him. You felt disappointed that your mouth was too dry for you to be able to gather enough saliva to spit on him.

“Gather all the weapons and let’s go! We gotta get outta here, those gunshots will have been heard all throughout town!” That was Kenny’s voice.

Your mind felt fuzzy, but you still bent over to pick up the knife that Benny had dropped when Ethan rammed into him. There was blood on the blade. Huh.

You raised a hand to your neck in a stupor and felt the slippery wetness coating your collarbone. Up further, your fingers dipped into a slanted gash that was a few inches long. You must’ve gotten sliced in the commotion of Benny getting taken down. As far as you could tell, it wasn’t too deep, but you also weren’t too keen to be sticking your fingers into the wound to test its depth.

“Ken, grab (Y/n) and get her in the truck!”

“On it!”

Apparently you had been moving too slowly, because when you looked back up you could see the spotty figures of Kenny and Ethan getting into the truck while Ken came back for you. The unmistakable sounds of the undead also reached you belatedly. They had heard the gunshots and every walker in the area was probably making a beeline for your location.

You went along with Ken as best as you could, but your legs were being annoyingly clumsy and didn’t want to work properly. The truck was only a short distance away, so soon enough the two of you were piled into the back seat and Kenny was tearing away from the scene, tires screeching in his haste.

Kenny demanded to know what had happened, and Ethan launched into a retelling from the helicopter right up to the two of you getting ambushed. He tossed Ken the medkit he had grabbed from the helicopter, and Ken pulled out gauze from inside and applied it to your neck to stop the bleeding and gently moved your hand to have you hold the fabric in place. Then he handed it back to Ethan, who dressed his own bloodied neck while he kept up his report.

You ignored his recounting of the events, choosing to work on sorting out your own thoughts privately. Everything felt muddled in your head and it was only making you more bemused in your disoriented state.

_Ethan and I were ambushed. I didn’t cooperate. That’s why my cheek and ribs hurt. They were trying to take me away and were going to kill Ethan, but Ken shot them. My neck got cut in the confusion. I feel dizzy. We’re safe now._

The simple act of organizing your thoughts did wonders to recenter your mind. Your heart was finally able to calm down and acknowledge that you were back with friends and heading home. A headache was setting in though, which wasn’t helpful for decluttering your brain. Funnily enough, out of all of your injuries, you felt that your neck was the least painful somehow. It was almost like it was numb, or your mind hadn’t caught up to the fact that you had been cut there yet.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” Ken asked when he thought you looked more aware of your surroundings. “We’re getting close to the motor inn, and we’ll have Katjaa look you and Ethan over.” 

Kenny was flooring it to get back to the motel as fast as possible, wanting to get away from Macon and make sure you and Ethan weren’t in too much trouble. You didn’t feel _too_ awful. Granted, you didn’t feel great either, but a few bruises and a cut weren’t the worst things that could have happened. You were really glad that Ken and Kenny had shown up when they did, or you weren’t so sure Ethan would be sitting and breathing in the front seat of the truck with the rest of you.

“Sore, but alive,” you croaked, surprised by the shock of pain that ran through you like an electrical current. You cleared your throat and discovered that the agitation was primarily from your neck, meaning that the numbness must have been seeping away so that you were able to feel the rightful pain. “Starting to feel it more.”

Ken looked sympathetic to your plight. “Just hang in there, we’ll get you some painkillers soon to help take the edge off.”

The soon that Ken promised you arrived within less than ten minutes, much to your relief. The rumbling of the truck must have alerted the residents of the motor inn to your arrival from a distance because Doug and Felix were already swinging open the gates by the time you reached them.

This particular supply run was of great interest to everybody, given how it came about, so the remainder of your group emerged from wherever they had been set up to come see the outcome of the journey. Some held more hopeful expressions than others.

You definitely didn’t want to be the first one out of the vehicle. That wouldn’t give the best impression if the first thing they saw from your small group returning was you with a swollen cheek and a bloody square of gauze held to your neck. Kenny was the first to exit the truck, pulling a hunting rifle with him that he and Ken must have collected from the assailants. 

Ken motioned for you to go out before him, but you shook your head in response and shied away. Taking your cue, Ken didn’t pressure you and left the cabin of the truck with the original pistol and the other hunting rifle in his hands. Ethan was next, carrying the pistol he had grabbed from the pilot. You heard a couple of small gasps when people saw that Ethan had some gauze pressed against his neck wound.

With no more time to stall, you followed Ethan’s lead and elicited a similar response of a couple of startled intakes of breath. You didn’t feel like making eye contact and seeing the pity in anyone’s eyes, so you kept your gaze lowered to everyone’s shoes. Some people’s footwear was looking much worse for wear than others. Your heart gave a small involuntary jump when you came across the other pair of hiking boots that you recognized as familiar to the ones you had snagged for yourself weeks ago when you had first found yourself in this mess.

“What happened out there?” Lilly’s tone was nonplussed. You didn’t have to look up at her to know that her arms would be crossed and that she would be wearing a judgemental frown.

Unsurprisingly, Kenny took the lead in explaining. “We made it to the chopper fine - it had crashed into the drugstore we had been holed up in - but there were walkers crawling all over the place. We split up to distract them, and sent Ethan and (Y/n) to check out the crash. The copter ended up falling into the building after they got out of it and caused a ruckus, so we had to meet back up at the truck instead of regrouping right away. By the time Ken and I got there, there were three men that had Ethan and (Y/n) hostage.”

“They were going to kill me and take (Y/n) and the truck,” Ethan jumped in, “but Ken came just in time with his gun and got the jump on them. The gunshots brought walkers to us though, so we had to grab their weapons from them and book it out of there.”

Lilly ran her hands through her hair, a sure sign of stress as she debated what to lecture you guys on first. After her hands did one last swipe over her face she was prepared to speak.

“I told you it was a stupid risk,” she reprimanded. “Ethan and (Y/n) could’ve died and you only got _three_ guns?! How is that worth all that trouble?”

Kenny stood his ground, scowl on his face. “It was only because we had a gun in the first place that we were able to save (Y/n) and Ethan! And-”

“They wouldn’t have been in danger if you hadn’t dragged them out there with you!” Lilly interrupted, bordering on yelling.

“And besides,” Kenny continued, also raising his volume to combat Lilly, “how long until we got into a situation like that anyway? What if we got attacked in the future and knives weren’t going to cut it? Are we just supposed to depend on _one_ pistol? Sure, it was a risk, but we came back alive and with more guns! I already feel a helluva lot safer than I did before.”

“You’re impossible,” Lilly muttered, shaking her head at Kenny. “ _Fine._ You got what you wanted, but we are never taking a _stupid fucking_ risk like that again.”

Without leaving any room for argument, Lilly stormed away. You could practically see the steam coming out of her ears. Shockingly not having any additional jabs to throw at anyone, Larry also left the semi-circle that had gathered.

Kenny _hmph_ ed in annoyance at the chastization and briefly lifted his hat to run an irked hand through his tangled hair. He looked ready to storm off as well, but then his eyes passed over you and Ethan and his defiant posture slumped somewhat.

“Shit,” he murmured to himself remorsefully. “Kat, would you look over these two? We don’t think it’s anything too serious, but they’d probably appreciate some painkillers.”

Those not involved took this as their cue to disperse and give you space and you felt grateful for this. You weren’t in the mood to be ogled at the moment. Ken gave you a clap on the shoulder in a show of support then also walked off to afford you more privacy.

Lee was hovering a small ways away with his hand on Clementine’s shoulder, looking unsure if he should allow the young girl to go with you or if he should keep her occupied and away from you for your benefit. You solved this uncertainty of his by motioning for Clem to come over to you and offering her your free hand to hold. She didn’t hesitate to run to your side and quickly latched onto your hand. You smiled at Lee and he tilted his head in acknowledgement then left you be.

Clementine grabbed onto Ethan’s hand as well and you watched the soft smile make its way onto his face because of her action. She held both of your hands tightly and looked up at Katjaa to wait for her instructions.

Cry was the last other person lingering anxiously. When his eyes locked onto yours they seemed to be asking permission for him to come with you as well. Your nod was almost imperceptible, but Cry seemed to have been searching for it because you could see his shoulders relax with your consent.

Katjaa noticed Cry waiting as well, and took it into account. “Cry, would you help (Y/n) up to her room and watch over her for me? I will look at Ethan first since he is on the bottom floor, then I will come up to her. And Clem, would be so kind as to help me? I could use an assistant.” 

Clem looked at you, then at Ethan, and then agreed to Katjaa’s plan, reluctantly letting go of your hand and guiding Ethan in the direction of his room while the veterinarian went to retrieve medical supplies. 

You were beginning to feel fatigued after the day’s excitement and felt your remaining energy sapping out of you. Cry noticed this as well and pulled your free arm over his shoulder for you to lean on him without comment. You accepted his generosity, too tired to feel embarrassed or insist that you could make it up the stairs on your own. In all honesty he was a huge help to climb the steps, even though it wasn’t a huge feat to accomplish under normal circumstances.

In a way that felt mirrored to several days ago when he had been the one injured, Cry helped you to get settled in bed. He pulled back the sheets and removed your shoes for comfort, then gently aided you in lowering yourself onto the mattress. He arranged your pillows so that you could sit up while you waited for Katjaa to come up and check you over.

The silence enveloping you felt stretched and unnatural. You and Cry had grown to be close friends, so it was extremely odd that you were feeling uncomfortable in his presence. At the same time, you weren’t quite sure what you could say to break the silence, so you settled for just shifting awkwardly in your spot.

“Remember the mess we were in when we first met?” Cry asked. His voice was more subdued than it normally was, like he had to put in some effort to keep it level. “You had a sprained ankle and I managed to stab myself with that shard of glass.”

You nodded, unsure of where he was going with this. “Yeah; we patched each other up as best as we could. It was kinda weird, not knowing each other but still having to do something like that. I guess the zombie apocalypse will do that to you.”

“You did a pretty good job on my arm,” he praised, mustering up a small smile for you. “It’s pretty much healed now, just a bit of scab still there.” 

To prove this, Cry shrugged off his flannel that he wore over his t-shirt and held out his left arm for you to examine. He was right, there was only a tiny fraction worth of the original wound that was still scabbed over, the rest had faded into a pinkish scar. A sense of pride filled you in knowing that you had dressed the wound well enough that it had healed fairly well.

“I’m glad it’s almost better now,” you voiced truthfully. “Now it’s just your jaw that needs more time. Think that’ll scar from the cut too?”

“Probably. It doesn’t hurt anymore at least.” There was another long pause before Cry continued hesitantly, as though choosing his words carefully. “I’m more worried about you. What happened, exactly? They kept it broad when they told everyone, but… I feel like I need to know. Ah, I don’t know, maybe it’s not my place and you don’t want to tell me, but- ”

Sensing that he was rambling out of nervousness about how you would receive his question, you interrupted him to answer, “It’s alright, I’ll tell you.”

Cry immediately shut his mouth and turned all of his attention to you. His eyes stared into yours intently, and you could see that he wanted to know because he cared about you, not just simple curiosity. He wanted to hear what had happened from you so that he could know for sure that you were okay.

After a deep inhale and slow exhale, you launched into your detailed account of what you and Ethan had gone through. You included as much as you could remember, getting an inkling that knowing more would make Cry feel better. There was no point in hiding anything anyway. It was kind of funny when Cry swore and muttered threats under his breath when you mentioned that Phil had grabbed you inappropriately. The pride in his eyes when you told him how you had hurt Phil's jaw in retaliation was also entertaining.

“They didn’t like that I wasn’t being cooperative, so that’s where this came from,” you gestured to your swollen cheek. You hadn’t checked any mirrors recently, but you wouldn’t be surprised if the darker colouration of a bruise was starting to set in already. “They also got in a couple of kicks, so my stomach’s probably bruised all to hell too. Then when they were about to take me and kill Ethan, Ken shot the other two guys dead, but the leader tried to use me as a shield. Ethan tackled him but his knife still must’ve caught me when we fell, hence the cut on the neck. Ethan and I probably match, actually. He had a knife to his throat earlier as well.”

You were trying to end on a lighter note, but Cry’s expression didn’t crack. He looked very serious, especially as his eyes trailed down to the gauze that you still had up against your neck. In between your fingers felt a bit sticky, so you assumed some blood had seeped through. That probably didn’t help Cry feel any better.

“So they’re all dead?” His voice was cold and brought you back to the iciness he had portrayed when you had first met him and he thought you were a threat. You suppressed a shiver.

“Yes,” you said plainly.

“Good.” 

Damn, Cry could really be heartless. Well, then again, you hadn’t been too impressed with Middleton when he had injured your friend, and you had even known that he hadn’t done it maliciously. You supposed it wasn’t too far of a reach that Cry’s negative inclinations to your attackers would be more extreme than your reaction to Middleton had been.

A small figure came running in through the doorway and barely refrained from jumping onto the bed with you, thinking better of it at the last minute upon remembering that you were hurt. Clementine stood right at the edge of the bed instead, eagerly searching your face.

“That looks like it hurts,” she said as she stared at your cheek.

“It does,” you confirmed. “You and Katjaa gonna help patch me up?”

“Mhmm! Katjaa let me wrap the bandage around Ethan’s neck and put the band-aid on his head where he had gotten hit!”

“Clementine here makes for a good nurse,” Katjaa said with a smile as she also entered your room. Cry stood up from his chair to allow the older woman to take a seat and she thanked him for it. “Here, take these. They’ll help with the pain.”

Katjaa handed you a few pills and a water bottle that was half filled. You gulped down the meds with no further questions, wanting your head to cease its thrumming as soon as possible.

Katjaa spoke to you softly as she went about prodding at your cheek and lifting the bloody gauze from your neck. When Cry spoke up and mentioned that you had said something about your stomach as well, Katjaa gently requested for you to lift your shirt so that she could gauge the damage. Cry turned around to give you some privacy when you exposed your midriff - which you were thankful for - and Katjaa deemed that the damage didn’t seem too extensive. It’d bruise, but it didn’t look like any ribs were out of place.

“Hmm, the cut on your neck is a bit deeper than Ethan’s was,” Katjaa admitted as she cleaned the wound. You winced at the sting, but did your best to keep a straight face. “It is not life threatening, but had it gone much deeper it could have been. You are very fortunate, (Y/n).”

You were going to make some kind of joke to lighten the sombre mood, but the grave look on Cry’s face at the mention of how close you had come to a fatal wound made you think twice about it. It likely wasn’t the appropriate time to be making light of the situation. Besides, maybe you should keep your mouth shut so that your throat wouldn’t move while Katjaa was cleaning the area.

“Clementine, dear, do you remember how you wrapped the bandage around Ethan’s neck?” Clementine nodded from where she stood beside Cry so Katjaa continued, “Think you can do that again for (Y/n)? Your wrapping was very neat last time.”

Clementine glowed at the compliment and she came forward, climbing up on the bed and kneeling beside you. Katjaa handed her a long strip of cloth fabric and a couple strips of medical tape, then held a fresh piece of gauze to the wound and signalled for Clementine to take over. Clem taped down the gauze carefully and Katjaa retracted her hands to give the young girl free range.

Clementine was cautious as she spun the fabric around your neck to secure the bandage. Her tongue poked out a little from how concentrated she was on doing the task perfectly. You made eye contact with Katjaa and Cry as she was going around you and both of their smiles matched your own as they watched the young girl wrap your neck so diligently.

She sat back on her ankles to survey her work when she was finished, giving a quick nod to herself when she judged it to be a job well done.

“That looks great, Clementine, thank you,” Katjaa said. She stood up from the chair and went to leave the room. “I’ll check in with you tomorrow, but you should get some rest. Goodnight, I hope you all sleep well.” The three remaining occupants of the room also bid her a goodnight and you thanked her for looking after you. She smiled again then closed the door behind herself.

“Well, I, uh, guess I’ll-”

“Can you tell me a story for tonight?” Clem asked, cutting Cry off.

That caught him off guard. “What?”

“A story,” she repeated enthusiastically. “(Y/n) usually tells me a story before bed, but Katjaa told her to rest, so I was wondering if you’d tell me a story instead? It doesn’t have to be the same one that (Y/n)’s been telling me, I don’t mind starting a new one.”

“Uh…” Cry looked to you for an answer but you just shrugged, leaving the choice up to him. “Alright, yeah, sure. Why not?”

Cry cleared his throat to begin his story, but Clementine interrupted him again before he could start. She scooched over on the bed and patted the space between you and herself.

“You can come sit on the bed, it’s much comfier.”

Once again Cry turned to you with a slightly lost expression on his face. “Only if (Y/n)’s okay with it,” he said, giving you the final say on the matter.

Clementine directed doe eyes at you, silently pleading for you to agree to it and you knew that you didn’t have a choice. _She knows she’s too cute for me to refuse_ , you thought to yourself with a quiet laugh.

“It’s fine with me,” you concurred.

“Hooray!” Clem cheered and patted the spot next to her excitedly again. 

Cry ruffled his hair subconsciously and moved to clamber into the centre of the queen bed. He took some time to adjust himself and settle down comfortably, and chose to remain above the covers, likely so that he wouldn’t disturb your or Clem when he got up to leave once he was finished.

Clementine beamed up at him when he stopped shifting, and laid down to get ready to sleep herself. Instead of using the other pillow like she usually did, however, she chose to rest her head on Cry’s thigh and wait patiently for him to start his story.

You could tell that Cry was taken aback by this at first - and his newfound occupation as Clem's pillow made it more complicated for him if he planned to sneak out later - but he didn’t comment on it and allowed a soft smile to grace his lips. Taking it in stride, he set forth on unfolding a story that reminded you suspiciously of the plot of a video game you had seen him play on his channel.

You’d have to remember to thank Clementine, you decided as you drifted off to the soothing sound of Cry’s voice. Maybe the two of you could convince Cry to tell you bedtime stories more often - it was really nice to fall asleep listening to him. You felt warm, relaxed, and safe as you gave in to the tug of sleep on your mind and body.


	17. [Seventeen]

After the helicopter incident in Macon, runs became much less frequent and Lilly was less willing to compromise on how things at the motor inn should be run, resulting in her becoming the unspoken leader. Kenny was more preoccupied with keeping his family safe than trying to lead the whole group and probably thought it wasn’t worth the effort to get into a full-blown argument with Lilly to try and lessen her grip on the leadership.

With you guys having brought back a couple of hunting rifles, hunting became a more frequent pastime instead of supply runs. It was considered less dangerous than venturing into towns, but people were still expected to go in groups so that no one would be outside of the motel gates without a partner with them. With the extra bodies of you and the YouTubers, this precaution wasn’t too much of a big deal and hunting shifts were traded off without much of a fuss. The main concern was making sure the person who would be handling the rifle was a competent shot.

That day it was Kenny, Middleton, Lee, and Ken as the hunting team, and the rest of you were either relaxing or working half-heartedly on the continuous fortification of the gates. It didn’t feel like there was much else you could do for it, although Doug was taking an interesting approach and working on some sort of alarm system to alert you all when any walkers (or anything else) were coming towards the inn.

Having a more low profile allowed you, Ethan, and Cry time to heal from the injuries you had acquired, which was a benefit to the arrangement. And Clementine appreciated having so many people around more often to sucker into playing wither her and Duck. One time she and the boy managed to get five additional people to play hide-and-seek with them. You had been one of their victims.

A downfall of having a far more limited schedule of supply runs was that the food stock was running lower than was comfortable. Having so many extra mouths to feed that didn't belong to the game had taken its toll, and the nights that you went to bed hungry were more common than not at this point.

It was difficult to tell how much time had passed since you had all set up at the Travelier Motel, but it had to have been a few months, or else time was cruel in playing tricks on you.

Clementine’s hat going missing should have clued you in to the fact that the game was beginning to move along, but it was such a small detail that it completely bypassed you and the other YouTubers. You only pieced it together when you were practically slapped in the face with the events unfolding right in front of you.

“Get the gates open! We’ve got wounded!”

Your heart leapt into your throat and you, along with everybody else in your group, hurried into action to see what was going on. 

It was chaos. The gates were quickly pulled open and the hunting team rushed inside, Middleton carrying someone over his shoulder. A lanky teen also slipped inside, looking antsy and jittery with nervous energy. The rest of your group quickly huddled around where the commotion was taking place.

“Lee, are you okay?” Clementine asked through the panic, a concerned furrow in her brows.

You were paying more attention to the newcomers, a pit forming in your stomach. The teenager was tall and wearing some sort of school jacket, and he held a few similarities to a younger Pewds in his facial features. _Ben_.

The other man - older, likely a teacher because he had a jacket that matched Ben’s - was lowered into the bed of the truck parked off to the side, and Katjaa didn’t hesitate to go to his side and start checking him over. His left leg had been severed from just below the knee. You glanced over at the bloody axe that Lee was holding and shuddered. A phantom pain shot through your leg in sympathy. You tried to divert your attention elsewhere.

“Lee! Lee!” Lilly took control of the situation, her hollowed face contorted in its usual scowl. “What the hell?! You can’t just be bringing new people here. What were you thinking?!”

While Lee hesitated to answer Kenny jumped in, telling Lilly to calm down, which - of course - only gave Larry an excuse to also butt in and escalate the argument brewing. And, as per usual, it was Lee that tried to calm everyone down and mitigate the tension and hostility building.

“I thought we could save his life! I’m the one that took his leg, that makes me responsible.”

You couldn’t imagine being faced with that decision, let alone having to go through with it. Just the thought of having to chop through someone’s leg made you squeamish, especially when you visualized reaching resistance at the bone. You weren’t sure that you would be able to do it. But then again, if it were a life-or-death situation… 

“Well that was a stupid thing to do!” Larry plowed on, pointing an accusing finger at Lee to emphasize his disapproval.

Lilly added to her father’s words, scoffing, “We are not responsible for every struggling survivor we come across! We have to focus on _our_ group! Right here. Right now.”

“Come on, Lilly. These are people! People trying to survive just like us. We’ve gotta stick together to survive,” Middleton tried to reason. He had settled into the group well and no longer shot Cry guilty looks every time he had to work with him.

“The only reason you’re here is because you had food,” Lilly snapped back at him. “Enough food for _all_ of us. But that food is almost gone, we’ve got maybe a week’s worth left, and I don’t suppose you guys are carrying any groceries, are you?!” The last part was directed at Ben, who jumped at being addressed in such an aggressive manner.

“Um, no,” he answered meekly.

Middleton sighed, giving up on the near impossible task of trying to reason with Lilly. “Fine. You guys fight it out, then. Welcome to the family, kid.”

Clementine took that moment to step forward and grab onto Ben’s hand, gently leading him away from the bickering. “Come over here and see what I drew,” she said, her voice pleading that he should just go along with it. He started to protest, but the young girl insisted, “Just c’mon, okay?”

Whether he knew it or not, Clem just saved him from the headache that commonly followed the spats that broke out more and more frequently with food getting short. Part of you wished you could also just ditch the adults and join the blissfully simple world of the children, but you knew that that would be irresponsible of you.

“You know, you like to think that you’re the leader of this little group, but we can make our own goddamn decisions!” Kenny contended while getting right up in Lilly’s face. “This isn’t your own personal dictatorship!”

These kinds of disagreements that led to shouting matches had only gotten worse with time, and no matter how much you and the others tried to mediate it, Lilly and Kenny would find some way to be at each other’s throats again sooner or later. It was tiresome for everyone involved, and eventually you started to just let them get their frustrations out without interruption, only intervening on particularly rancorous fights.

Lilly was rebutting Kenny’s accusation with how she didn’t ask to lead or be in charge of distributing the food, but you found her argument to be a bit lacking. Yes, she was kind of in charge and the one that gave out the rations, but not necessarily from lack of others being willing to help. It came down to the fact that Lilly wouldn’t _allow_ anyone else to lead, always shutting down others when they tried. Having her dad always back her up didn’t exactly foster a productive atmosphere to have rational discussions about possible compromises.

The food rationing was a difficult job that nobody really wanted to do, but Lilly was so strict about the rations that you doubted she’d want anyone else in charge of it. You doubted she would trust anyone else to handle it, even after knowing and living with you all for months by now.

“It doesn’t matter who’s in charge!” Lee intervened, ever the pacifier in these situations. “These people are here now. I guess we just have to decide what happens next.”

“No, Lee, it does matter!” Kenny responded. “One person can’t be in charge of _everything_! You know, it might feel safe for you to sit on the fence, but sooner or later you’re gonna have to decide whose side you’re on!”

Before anything else could be said, Kenny stormed off in a huff, and the tension started to dissipate. Well, at least until Larry decided to have the last word of the whole ordeal.

“I don’t see any of you stepping up to make the hard decisions! My girl’s got more balls than all of you combined!”

“Ew,” Felix muttered from beside you. “That’s nasty. She should probably get that checked out.”

As out-of-place as his comment was given the circumstances, you couldn’t help but chuckle at him. Your snort, however, brought Larry bearing down on the two of you.

“Do either of you got something to say?” he demanded angrily. 

For a moment you thought Felix would cave at the confrontation, but he managed to stand tall and answer, “Just thought you should use a better metaphor.”

“Dad, please,” Lilly said before Larry could retort. “Why don’t you go help Mark with the wall?”

Larry didn’t argue any further, but glared at you and Felix, then at Lee as he walked away to do as his daughter suggested. He bumped into Doug’s shoulder as he passed, which you thought was unnecessary and just plain rude. Doug was such a mild-mannered guy, he almost never participated in any of the fights that broke out. Larry certainly had no reason to knock into him like that.

Lilly then turned to Lee, not paying any mind to the rest of you that were still there as well. “You think this is easy for me? Everyone’s starting to hate me because _I’m_ the one that rations the food. But nobody else wants to!” She began walking over to the RV where she had previously been on watch, Lee following behind her. 

The rest of you just stood there silently for another couple of seconds, all staring at each other with wide eyes from what had just taken place. Things had remained relatively quiet ever since the men that attacked you and Ethan, so this sudden activity was definitely disconcerting. 

When Doug had wandered off to continue tinkering with his little alarm system project, you and the YouTubers got closer together to be able to talk without being overheard.

“Well, looks like episode two just started,” Cry voiced first. “Shit’s about to hit the fan.”

“God, has it already been three months?” Ken asked nobody in particular. “It’s all starting to blur… I wonder what’s going on back home.”

At the reminder of life back in the real world, everyone visibly slumped a little bit, likely thinking of loved ones missed. What was going on in real life while you were all trapped living out the plot of a zombie video game was a question that none of you knew the answer to. It was a rather depressing topic to think about, so most of you did what you could to avoid dwelling on it for too long.

“Well, anyway, how long until that guy comes b-” Ethan is cut off by a sharp jab to the ribs, courtesy of Mark’s elbow. “Hey! What was that for?”

Mark forwent any verbal response and instead jerked his head forward, the rest of you also turning to look where he was gesturing. Mark had cut Ethan short because he saw that Lee was headed over and didn’t want to risk him overhearing anything that he shouldn’t be privy to.

“Hey Lee, what’s up?” Ken asked when the protagonist was within hearing range.

“I was put in charge of food rations today,” he offered, already looking uncomfortable at what that job entailed. “There’s not enough for everybody, but you guys do quite a bit of the heavy lifting around here, so I wanted to make sure you got some.”

“Did you get food to Clemmy already?” Felix asked, trying to peer around Lee to where the little girl was colouring on the ground with Duck, a morose Ben sitting beside her.

Lee smiled at the concern shown for the girl and smiled. “The kids have eaten. Part of the reason there’s only a few things left…” He glanced down at his hands, in which he only held small packets of animal crackers, dried fruit, and mixed nuts. “I know you guys are all close, so I was wondering if I could delegate and ask you guys to split these between yourselves.”

“For sure, man,” Cry answered, and, being the closest to Lee, accepted the food items from him. “Did you eat anything?”

“Nah, but I know some of you have gone longer than me since your last meal, so don’t worry about me.” Without leaving you the opportunity to insist that he have _something_ at least, Lee walked away in the direction of Lilly, being done distributing the food for the day.

“Ugh, having a peanut allergy really sucks in the apocalypse,” Ethan complained, eyeing the bag of mixed nuts with apprehension. “Food’s already limited without my body being a jerk about it too. Can I check the ingredients on the other two packages to see if they’re safe?”

Cry handed them over, keeping the nuts. Ethan carefully scanned over the warning labels on the packages, looking for any indication that the products contained within could have come into contact with peanuts.

“So how are we splitting this?” you asked your small group.

“There’s not enough to spread around, and I got rations from Lilly last time, so I’ll sit this one out,” Mark volunteered.

Ethan groaned and tossed a bag each to you and Ken. “Both of them may have come into contact with peanuts, so that rules me out too.”

You handed your bag of dried fruit to Felix, who tried to refuse your offer, but you were insistent. “Don’t think I don’t notice you sharing rations with Clem. Eat, Pewds, you need to keep up your strength.”

“I’ll share with (Y/n),” Cry added, which seemed to lessen Felix’s discomfort at being given the package.

As much as you were all trying to be civil and benevolent to each other, the hunger you were all nursing was enough to have the food devoured within minutes once it was all settled who was eating what. It wasn’t nearly enough to satiate your hunger properly, but it did help with the painful clenching of your previously empty stomach.

Your pitiful meal was interrupted by Larry causing a scene over not being given food, and you all watched the interaction idly, not able to conjure up much sympathy to the grouchy old man. He wasn’t going hungry most days with his daughter handing out the rations, so you doubted missing out today would be as detrimental as he made it out to be. Hell, you were fairly certain Lee was going longer without food than Larry was, and he had given all the food away rather than feed himself when given the chance.

“I don’t know how you put up with him when you were in their group before the rest of us,” Ken said to Mark, shaking his head at Larry as he stomped back over to the wall. “Dude’s a total asshole.”

“Believe it or not, he wasn’t _this_ bad at the start.” At the incredulous looks he received for this comment, Mark continued, “He seems to specifically have a problem with Lee. And, well, Kenny’s hot-headed and fights with Lilly a lot, so of course Larry isn’t fond of him either.”

“Oh shit,” Cry thought aloud. “He knows.”

“What?” Ethan asked, not following Cry’s train of thought.

“He knows what Lee did, how he killed someone before all this. I forgot that he was the only one left that knew that after Carley died. He doesn’t trust Lee because of it, especially around Lilly. We’re not even supposed to know it, but doesn’t it get Lee into trouble later if he doesn’t tell anyone?”

“Yeah,” you jumped in, “Larry must tell Lilly at some point, because she ends up telling everyone and Kenny gets upset with Lee if Lee didn’t tell him first. Shit. Should we do something about that, or will that mess things up?”

“It works when Carley does it, so it shouldn’t be a problem if we-”

Felix was cut off by a woman’s scream and you felt your heart leap into your throat. You whipped around to see the one-legged man zombified and grabbing onto Katjaa and Lee struggled to wrestle her free from his undead grasp.

Shit! You had gotten caught up in talking about what to do with the other YouTubers that you had neglected to pay attention to what was going on outside of your little circle. It was a stupid mistake, but you’d have to kick yourself later for it; right now, Lee and Katjaa needed help.

Lee managed to separate the dead man from Katjaa, shoving him back in the truck bed to give himself some time. 

“The axe!” Lee shouted, going to reach for where he had dropped it in his rush to assist Katjaa.

 _That’s not right,_ you thought to yourself as you started to run over to where the walker was recovering too quickly for Lee to grab his weapon. _Wasn’t Middleton supposed to have the axe and come to help Lee?_

There was no time to wonder about that particular discrepancy at the moment, as Lee let out a strangled yell when the walker lunged for him and caused him to lose his balance and stumble backwards, crashing into the pavement with the corpse on top of him. He was fighting to hold it off, but you could tell that it was a losing battle.

Felix’s long legs carried him to the scene faster than the rest of the group but he hadn’t pulled his knife out, so he settled for grabbing the walker from behind, sliding his arms beneath the walker’s armpits and pulling back to give Lee the space to escape. The walker was squirming erratically though, and you could tell that Felix was having a difficult time keeping control of his hold.

Not giving the walker any more time to break free, you pulled your crowbar from your belt and lined up a shot. When you were confident that you wouldn’t accidentally hit Felix as well, you surged the metal bar forward and stilled the dead man. Felix hastily dropped the body when he felt it go limp in his arms, grimacing at the flecks of blood that had hit him.

“Thanks,” Lee panted to both of you as he got to his feet.

“We got you, bro, no worries,” Felix replied, his voice also a bit more strained than normal.

You, on the other hand, were warily watching as Larry came storming over, fury brewing beneath his features. _This is bound to be good_ … you mused sarcastically.

As expected, he immediately went on the offensive, “Why’d you bring him here in the first place, asshole?!” Lilly had also arrived at the scene and attempted to placate her father, but the older man brushed her aside. “You’re gonna get us _all_ killed!”

As the new kid - Ben - came over as well, the argument shifted to him. “ _You_ said he wasn’t bitten!” Kenny accused. Ben was visibly and audibly confused by this, so Kenny continued, “We asked you, point blank, ‘Was he bitten?’ and you said no!”

“He wasn’t!” Ben denied, voice higher pitched in his fear.

“Well you ‘not-bitten’ friend here just came back to life and tried to kill my wife,” Kenny growled, the fear for his loved ones turning to anger now that the immediate threat had passed.

“What? Wait,” Ben’s voice took on a less fearful and more gloomy tone, “y’all don’t know?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Kenny demanded angrily, having no patience for the newcomer.

“It’s not the bite that does it! You come back no matter how you die. If you don’t destroy the brain, that’s just what happens. It’s gonna happen to _all_ of us.”

There was a pregnant silence following Ben’s words as everyone digested the bomb he had just dropped on them. This news wasn’t anything new to you or your YouTuber companions, but the varying looks of despair and shock on everyone else’s faces was difficult to witness. You had grown to care for many of them more personally after spending so much time around them and it pained you to see them reacting to such a devastating realization. Clementine’s fear stricken expression was especially heart-wrenching.

“We’re all infected?” Lee’s low timbre broke the uneasy silence that had befallen the group. “Everyone?”

“I - I guess so. I don’t know…” Ben scrambled to piece his thoughts together. “All I know is that I’ve seen people turn who I _know_ were never bitten. When I first saw it happen, we were all hiding out in a gym and everyone thought we were finally safe. But one of the girls, Jenny Pitcher I think, I guess she couldn’t take it. She took some pills. A lot of them,” he paused briefly, the unsavoury topic a hard one to recount. “Someone went into the girls’ room the next morning and… God…”

Once again everyone was at a loss for words. It was obvious that Ben was implying that the girl, though not bitten, had turned and must have wreaked havoc on the unsuspecting girls that she had been roomed with. It was awful to think about and you forced yourself to push it out of your mind. There wasn’t anything that could be done about it anymore.

Something must have shown on your face because Cry placed a comforting hand on your shoulder. It was reassuring in a way that you didn’t know you needed, and you leaned into the touch, giving Cry a thankful smile.

No one had any time to react to Ben’s story when a soft jingling rang out, and everyone stared at the odd assortment of bells that Doug had been tampering around with earlier. Everyone seemed to realize at the same time what the sound was warning you about, and you all ducked behind whatever objects you could to get out of sight from whoever was approaching your camp.

Cry pulled you down beside him to be hidden by the truck that the dead man had previously been resting in. You could just make out Lilly’s harsh whispering, demanding to know who the people were. She was directing her question at Ben, who claimed he didn’t know. When Lee asked if they could be the people who raided his camp earlier, Ben told him that he also wasn’t sure about that either, but that he didn’t think so.

With a sinking feeling in your stomach, you had an idea of who they could be.

“Are they-?”

Before you could finish your question to Cry, Kenny stood up from his spot behind the wall and levelled his gun at the strangers, commanding them to stop where they were. The familiar drawl that answered him had Cry letting out a quiet curse under his breath.

Lee revealed himself next, trying to mediate the situation. “We don’t want any trouble.”

“Of course. Neither do we,” the voice answered. “I’m Andrew St. John. This here’s my brother Dan. We’re just looking for gasoline.”

“Shit, this isn’t good,” you mumbled to yourself, recalling this episode of the game.

“No it is not, my friend,” Cry agreed quietly.

You both left you cover to listen as Andrew St. John offered food to the group in exchange for some gasoline. While Lilly was distrustful of any outsiders, the possibility of food outweighed the risk, and you could tell that they were winning her over. Maybe not completely, but enough that she was willing to listen to them.

Looking around, you could see similar thoughtful expressions on other game characters’ faces. The desire for food was too great to pass up such an opportunity and you winced as you realized that there was no real way for you to oppose what you knew was going to happen next.

You took some solace in the hesitation that Lee was displaying in handling the St. John brothers at least. His eyes flashed over to you and then Ethan, and you wondered if he was remembering the other unfavourable strangers you had run into previously. Perhaps that was part of the reason he was being so cautious, even though you knew he was hungry and worried about Clementine getting enough food as well.

When the deal was offered to have some people from your group go back with the brothers to check out the farm and make sure it was okay, Lee remained silent for a few moments, thinking it over. Even though you knew how it would turn out, you still found yourself hoping that Lee would turn the brothers away. After several terse seconds, he finally answered.

“You’ve got a deal.”

_Fuck._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the world is a crazy place right now, stay safe out there friends


	18. Discontinued

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sorry this is so late, i posted about discontinuing this within a day or two of Cry's video, but forgot to also update this.

A/N: uh, hey folks, Pixel here. as you can see from the chapter title, this story is going to be discontinued. 

i received a few different messages on Quotev a few months back asking what i was going to do with this story, and at the time i had been confused and unaware of what was going on. i don't know if you know the situation or not, but i will link Cry's YouTube video on the matter and a Tweet from Beanie, who was involved/a victim of Cry's actions. (links at the bottom)

in a very broad summary, it would seem that Cry did some shady and inappropriate things with underage fans years ago - although nothing physical, it's still something he admits was wrong and openly says is not excusable. information about the situation is still unfolding at the time that i post this. there are rumours that the FBI are involved in it, so there's that. (yikes.)

regardless of how it pans out, i have decided to discontinue this story, as it feels that it would be in bad taste to continue it. not only because there are likely underage readers (h*ck, i was underage when i wrote the original), but also because writing fan fiction about real people can often feel odd and invasive. it's a sad decision to make, as writing this story has sparked so many wonderful interactions with people in the comments and i had many new and exciting twists planned, but i feel that this is the right choice. 

it will not be the end of my writing altogether, and i'm sure you'll be able to find future stories of mine (likely straying away from YouTubers), and i hope that our paths will cross again. thank you for supporting my writing and being so kind. stay safe out there, and i wish you all the best.

Beanie's statement: [twitter.com/LadyTiabeanie/status/1273428606409035776?s=20](twitter.com/LadyTiabeanie/status/1273428606409035776?s=20)

Cry's video: [youtu.be/H4E5B0-8q2E](youtu.be/H4E5B0-8q2E)

Edit: i found a couple of documents/threads that seem to remain up to date with with new info found, so i will link those as well.

Reddit megathread: [reddit.com/r/ChaoticMonki/comments/hef6zr/megathread_cryaotic_accusations/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf ](reddit.com/r/ChaoticMonki/comments/hef6zr/megathread_cryaotic_accusations/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)

Google docs thread: [docs.google.com/document/d/10TWGWrBau0WvKhsZM7lIEki1M7syRi4OvV96EBnuDXo/edit?usp=drivesdk](docs.google.com/document/d/10TWGWrBau0WvKhsZM7lIEki1M7syRi4OvV96EBnuDXo/edit?usp=drivesdk)

**Author's Note:**

> okay, so i originally had this story only on Quotev, but i have decided to also post it on other platforms, so here we are. i hope you enjoyed it, and thank you for reading!


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